Framework Design Guidelines: Design Methodologies

Continuing in the series of discussing topics from the Framework Design Guidelines…

Expert from 2.2 Fundamental Principles of Framework Design

DO NOT rely solely on standard design methodologies when designing

the public APIs layer of a framework.

CHRIS ANDERSON Each developer has his or her own methodology,

and although there isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with using other

modeling approaches, the problem generally is the output. Starting by writing

the code you want a developer to write is almost always the best

approach—think of it as a form of test-driven development. You write the

perfect code, then work backwards to figure out the object model that you

would want.

I love this one from Captain Anderson… What methodologies do you find work particularly well for API design? And what nightmare stories do you have from people using the wrong tool?