Modular architecture, Lego and my Son’s bedroom…

This, I’m ashamed to say, is my son’s bedroom.

As you can see, he loves Lego.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Lego too, I like the modular nature of it, I like the way you can take small units and combine them together to make bigger, more complex things. I like the way the blocks snap easily together and I like the distinct colours each block has.

The problem is this. When I look at my son’s bedroom it reminds me of some of the software I’ve seen in previous job’s. No structure, no organisation, things in places where they shouldn’t be, basically a mess.

When software is designed like this it becomes unmaintainable and un-scalable.

I prefer to design my software so that everything is in it’s proper place. Tables, Packages, Sequences, Objects, Javascript, Style Sheets, HTML all have separate and distinct functions. Don’t mix them!

It makes my toes curl when I see HTML/CSS code embedded in a PL/SQL package or Javascript code in an APEX page region.

So I said to my son that I would get him a little unit of drawers so he can keep the Lego in that and he can organise it by colour and type. This seemed to make some sense to him since he could then easily find pieces and build bigger and better Lego creations in a short time.

So far he hasn’t tidied his Lego into the drawers, but one day I believe he will. One day the light bulb will appear above his head and when it does I’ll take a photograph of his room and post back here.