Development at the Speed of Thought

Throughout this chapter (and the preceding two chapters), a lot of information, models, heuristics, and details about objects have been presented. Every discussion of every aspect of objects and object modeling included a caveat: every step and every model is used only as a means of clarifying and communicating understanding and is utilized only as part of the relevant XP activity.

Furthermore, there is an expectation that you will overtly use the material presented in Chapters 7 through 9 only while learning object thinking. Eventually, all of the material in this entire book will be inside your head, and you will be applying it without conscious awareness and while engaged in other explicit activities ”most notably while you are writing and refactoring code.

At first you will be consciously reminding yourself of the concepts and ideas presented here and will make use of the various diagrams as explicit aids to thinking. As you gain proficiency, you will use the aids less and less but still might be seen talking to yourself just as a new reader will move his lips while reading silently. Eventually you will just do it.

XP has three maturity levels ” out of the box , adaptation , and transcendence ” that apply equally to object thinking. Once you have transcended the material in this book, you will think faster and better about objects, and that thinking will improve and expedite your thinking about design, testing, and coding.