Design Patterns in Ruby (Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series)

by Russ Olsen

Separate out the things that change from those that stay the same. Program to an interface, not an implementation. Prefer composition over inheritance. Delegate, delegate, delegate.

Whenever you put in a feature before you really need it, you are guilty of programming while stupid; if you wait until you really need the thing, you are likely to have a better understanding of what you need to do and how you should go about doing it.

engineers do have a tendency to build the Queen Mary (or perhaps the Titanic?) when a canoe will suffice.

If the user wants to do it (whatever it is) a lot, it is the default. Conversely, if the user does not want to do it all that often, it can be a bit harder.