Do you know that one feature no developer wants to touch?
The one that somehow takes forever to update and seems responsible for 80% of the application. The component with dozens of props, flaky tests, and a mysterious workaround nobody fully understands anymore.
Systems like that become difficult to maintain. They slow development, erode confidence, and make even small changes feel risky.
Let’s stop being afraid of our own codebases.
Key take-aways
- Reading code is harder than writing code. Code should be organized into pieces with a narrow responsibility, wide applicability, and low cognitive overhead. Don’t DRY things that look the same, DRY things that are logically the same. Think of code as a noise to signal ratio, make it easy to find what’s important. AI amplifies the issues of poorly composed code. All code has cognitive cost, spend your budget wisely.
This webinar grew into Better Living Through Composition, now on tour: the full 40-minute version at Web Unleashed Toronto on October 27, and the 20-minute cut at React Summit New York on November 20.