The Computing Series

F2 — The 15 Engineering Principles

# Principle One-Line
P1 Abstraction Hide irrelevant complexity
P2 Modularity Independent units
P3 Composability Small pieces combine cleanly
P4 Separation of Concerns One responsibility per component
P5 Idempotency Same operation twice = same result as once
P6 Reproducibility Same input → same output, every time
P7 Immutability Data does not change; new versions are created
P8 Locality Data and compute live close together
P9 Fault Tolerance Continues operating when components fail
P10 Observability You can tell what the system is doing from outside
P11 Consistency Same conditions produce same behaviour
P12 Security Boundaries Trust is verified, not assumed
P13 Fail Fast Detect errors early; stop rather than propagate
P14 Least Privilege Only the access needed, no more
P15 Measure & Adapt Improve empirically, not by assumption

Use: As a checklist before deployment. Each absent principle predicts a failure mode.


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