The document discusses making software more fragile rather than robust. It argues that software should fail fast by throwing exceptions when errors occur, rather than concealing errors and continuing to operate. This reveals issues rather than hiding them and allows problems to be addressed early. Throwing exceptions promotes an attitude of humility over arrogance by acknowledging when the software cannot handle a situation rather than pretending it can.

1. Need Robust Software?
Make It Fragile

2. @yegor256
Yegor Bugayenko

3. “Robustness is the ability to
continue operating despite
abnormalities”
— Wikipedia

4. public int size(File file) {
if (!file.exists()) {
return 0;
}
return file.length();
}

5. public int size(File file) {
if (!file.exists()) {
throw new Exception(
"file doesn’t exist"
);
}
return file.length();
}

6. Fail Safe
vs
Fail Fast

7. try {
// something may go wrong
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
// keep going...

8. concealing
vs
revealing

9. size()

10. size()

11. size()

12. size()

13. tolerance
vs
arrogance

14. size()

15. “Robustness is the ability to
continue operating despite
abnormalities”

16. surviving
vs
operating

17. What do you
think?
@yegor256
Yegor Bugayenko
www.yegor256.com