Bruce Wallace has coined the term Design Markers to describe his proposed technique of documenting Design Choices in source code using Marker Interfaces. In the context of Java, the JavaDoc tool leverages this practice to provide several practical benefits. This page contains links to example files and published articles on the subject.

The strategy of linking a design to its implementation by coining terms to represent design contracts and explicitly referencing those terms in the source code has been independently conceived as well by the Software Practices Lab at the University of British Columbia. They have coined the term Explicit Programming for this strategy and are working on an experimental tool called ELIDE whose goal is to automate enforcement of the same kinds of design choices that Design Markers seek to document.