Anti-Patterns and Pitfalls

Anti-patterns are recurring solutions to common problems that initially appear beneficial but ultimately lead to negative consequences. This section covers architectural, design, and organizational anti-patterns that cause systems to become hard to maintain, scale, and secure.

Key Anti-Patterns:

• Big Ball of Mud: Unstructured, difficult to navigate codebase
• Spaghetti Code: Complex control flow without clear structure
• God Object/Class: One component doing too much
• Golden Hammer: Using one solution for all problems
• Boat Anchor and Lava Flow: Obsolete code that won't go away
• Copy-Paste Programming: Violating DRY principle
• Premature Optimization: Optimizing before profiling
• Distributed Monolith: Microservices with monolithic coupling
• Chatty Interfaces: Excessive inter-component communication
• Over-Abstracting: Too many layers of indirection
• Anemic Domain Model: Domain objects without behavior
• Shared Database: Tight coupling via shared storage
• Overuse of Patterns: Patternitis
• Flaky Tests: Non-deterministic test failures

📄️ Big Ball of Mud

Comprehensive guide to Big Ball of Mud in software architecture

📄️ Spaghetti Code

Complex, tangled control flow without clear structure, making code hard to understand and modify.

📄️ God Object / God Class

One class doing too much with many responsibilities, violating single responsibility principle.

📄️ Golden Hammer

Using one familiar solution for every problem, even when better alternatives exist.

📄️ Boat Anchor and Lava Flow

Obsolete code that won't die, accumulating to form unmaintainable legacy.

📄️ Copy-Paste Programming

Duplicating code instead of extracting shared functionality, violating DRY principle.

📄️ Premature Optimization

Optimizing code before understanding where bottlenecks actually are.

📄️ Distributed Monolith

Microservices independent in deployment but tightly coupled in design.

📄️ Chatty Interfaces and Tight Coupling

Too much communication between objects, causing latency and tight coupling.

📄️ Over-Abstracting: Too Many Layers

Adding abstraction layers beyond what's needed, reducing clarity.

📄️ Anemic Domain Model

Domain objects that are just data containers, with business logic scattered elsewhere.

📄️ Shared Database Across Services

Multiple services accessing one shared database, creating tight coupling.

📄️ Overuse of Patterns: Patternitis

Using design patterns everywhere, even when simple solutions work better.

📄️ Flaky Tests and Non-Determinism

Tests that pass sometimes, fail other times due to timing, randomness, or shared state.