Code reuse

It does happen, but it is mostly utility functions. The design method that allows for good reuse is simple: "make it as general as possible". If you have a general function/class it will more often apply to other problems.

Reduce dependencies (especially dependencies on non-reusable code). Modularity is key.

Quote:

Original post by twanvl The design method that allows for good reuse is simple: "make it as general as possible".

Frequently, "general as possible" means writing code that will not be used and that is counter-productive. A better strategy is to design with the general solution in mind but only implement the specific solution.

In general, the smaller the class, the more reusable it is.

That's more of an indicator than of a design method... IOW, don't just set out to write small classes so they can be re-used. The most general of the classes would be the most re-usable, of course... and generally, those classes are small.

Classes with a lot of responsibilities couple more different types of logic and different algorithms, so it's less likely that these larger classes would be re-usable.

The word for this type of design philosophy is "granularity".