An interesting looking idea that I have not tried which the extreme programming folks mention is to have a group of people stand in a circle with a ball. Each person is an object, and as they make method calls they pass the ball (to represent passing a message).

Even if you are working by yourself, you might try to get a few friends to help you with this exercise just for fun.

Apparently this gives a lot of insight into what the bottlenecks will be in real life and how it will work.

It also plays well into a tidbit I learned a long time ago about memory. People who study memory techniques claim that the bigger you make a visualization, and the more senses you get involved, the better your brain is at working with the image, and the better you will be able to remember it later. For instance imagining walking into a room and looking around is far better than imagining holding a model of the room and peering in.

Well the visualization of standing in a circle, throwing things, for the model of how a program works is a pretty big visualization that involves lots of your senses...

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