Twisted Documentation: The Pasta Theory of Design

Over the holidays I’ve been learning the Twisted framework and reading through the Twisted Core Documentation.  I came across this gem of an analogy…

The pasta theory of design:

• Spaghetti: each piece of code interacts with every other piece of code [can be implemented with GOTO, functions, objects]
• Lasagna: code has carefully designed layers. Each layer is, in theory independent. However low-level layers usually cannot be used easily, and high-level layers depend on low-level layers.
• Ravioli: each part of the code is useful by itself. There is a thin layer of interfaces between various parts [the sauce]. Each part can be usefully be used elsewhere.
• ...but sometimes, the user just wants to order "Ravioli", so one coarse-grain easily definable layer of abstraction on top of it all can be useful.

Twisted Documentation: The Evolution of Finger: making a finger library

I love it!