Silver Bullet?

Is minimizing repetition the single most important adaptive design (Probe-Sense-Respond vs. Sense-Analyze-Respond) technique?

From Lean Development & the Predictability Paradox by Mary Poppendieck

A key technique for absorbing changes easily is to avoiding repetition like the plague. If you have to say the same thing in more than one place – either in design documents or code – then refactor the design to consolidate the capability into one place. One of the most effective ways to facilitate change is to localize every potential change in only one place.

From Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change (2nd Edition) by Kent Beck, Cynthia Andres:

If small steps are how to design, the next question is where in the system to improve the design. The simple heuristic I have found helpful is to eliminate duplication. If I have the same logic in two places, I work with the design to understand how I can have only one copy. Designs without duplication tend to be easy to change. You don't find yourself in the situation where you have to change the code in several places to add one feature.

IMO, if you couple minimizing repetition with writing code that is communicative, you should be in a fairly good place.

Minimizing

Minimizing has not been easy, but in the end, the essense of Inertia will be all that was Minimized. Everything I did not include and everything I removed.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Lao Tse:

Thirty spokes meet in the hub,
But the empty space between them
is the essence of the wheel.

Pots are formed from clay,
But the empty space within it
is the essence of the pot.

Walls with windows and doors form the house,
But the empty space within it
is the essence of the home.

Lin Yu Tang:

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.