← Directory

Rule of Three pattern

Sentence Structure

Overuse of the rule-of-three pattern, often extended to four or five. A single tricolon is elegant; three back-to-back tricolons (tri-tricolons) are a pattern recognition failure.

Examples

Products impress people; platforms empower them. Products solve problems; platforms create worlds. Products scale linearly; platforms scale exponentially.
These are design flaws, not syntax errors. They compile. They might even work. But they're code smells.
Measure ticket throughput and you get ... Measure velocity and you get ... Measure code coverage and you get ...
The fragment, the pause, the reveal
no gears, no belts and no bearings

Tags

rule-of-threeparallel-structurelists