Coding by exception
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coding by exception is an anti-pattern where software quickly degrades in performance and maintainability because it evolves by having special case functionality added piecemeal. This typically happens because an existing piece of software is extended to cover requirements that were not previously considered at the project's inception. This anti-pattern is unrelated to software exception handling.
As a general rule, well designed software projects contain very few corner cases. There are a variety of software development methodologies that purport to help engineers develop software that avoid these corner cases. They typically address dependency management issues. Design patterns are another tool for arriving at less of a 'one-off' solution.
