From Awareness to Action: Evolving Beyond the IF.
The Anti-IF Campaign began in 2007 with a simple mission: raise awareness about the misuse of IFs in software design. Back then, the focus was on reducing complexity through refactoring techniques and promoting evolutionary design.
This campaign was brought to life through talks at XP and Agile conferences, as well as workshops at universities. It garnered support from prominent figures in software design, including Kent Beck and Craig Larman, among others.
By 2018, the campaign evolved into Anti-IF Programming. The focus shifted. Instead of merely exploring how to remove IFs, the goal became understanding why developers rely on them.
This phase delved deeper, questioning the motivations and habits that lead developers to introduce IFs in their code.
Now, the campaign has matured into Defuse the IF Strategy. This isn’t just about theory or philosophy. It’s about practice.
The website and workshops are collections of real projects where IFs were systematically defused. These examples aren’t hypothetical—they show the actual results of thinking differently about change and complexity in software.
What started as awareness turned into curiosity. Now, it’s action.
Welcome to Defuse the IF Strategy.
Ready to be more than just a spectator?