The following Bug Stoppers summarize the design guidelines described in this chapter. Following them throughout a project’s design and development can reduce bugs and the amount of work you must perform to produce a finished application.
 | BUG STOPPERS: development
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| Design for uniformity, simplicity, and elegance.
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| Avoid creeping featuritis and bells and whistles disease.
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| Start with minimal functionality.
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| Avoid the not invented here syndrome.
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| Avoid the bleeding edge.
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| Avoid third-party products.
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| Optimize design, not small pieces of code.
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| Defer optimization.
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| Indent consistently.
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| Remove or assert assumptions.
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| Assert or Stop for invalid situations.
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| Raise errors for valid but exceptional situations.
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| Use Enums for status codes.
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| Return the worst data possible for errors.
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| Don’t use one input variable for multiple purposes.
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| Don’t use one output variable for multiple purposes.
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| Keep separate tasks separate.
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| Examine decision points closely.
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| Use FreeFile to obtain unused file numbers.
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| Use ByVal whenever possible to prevent confusing side effects.
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| Separate debug and nondebug code.
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