Everything is Broken (And That's Okay!)

Our world is controlled by software. As with everything that is created by humans, software is error-prone. Everyone got annoyed by bugs and UI/UX issues before, but what exactly does "broken" really mean and are there different kinds of brokenness? Let's explore the fun, enthralling, and quirky state of our (digital) world and see what we can do to make it better.

Matthias is a programming dinosaur from Düsseldorf, feeling right at home in the lower levels of the computing stack. In his day job he's working on Web Performance at trivago - but at night, he's vanishing into his Batcave to write emulators and WebAssembly modules for fun and profit. He used to have a YouTube channel called "Hello, Rust!" which he is planning to revive since one year. "It will be back one day", he promises. In the meantime check out his blog at endler.dev or his Twitter @matthiasendler.

Transcript

17. Seal up cracks and openings = Clean up the kitchen = Create a barrier to keep bugs out =
 Keep reviewing your own code
 Keep a focus on development 
 Keep writing unit tests
 ...
24. UberPool
26. UberFreight?
28. UberBike!
30. UberEats.
33. First Name Last Name
34. People have exactly one canonical full name.
35. People’s names do not change.
36. People’s names are written in ASCII.
37. People’s names do not contain numbers.
38. Alright alright but surely people’s names are diverse enough such that no million people share the same name.
39. My system will never have to deal with names from China.
40. People’s names are assigned at birth.
41. OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
42. Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
43. Five years?
44. You’re kidding me, right?
45. People have names.
47. Geometry the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties and relations of points, lines, surfaces, solids, and higher dimensional analogues.
49. Computer Science
50. assumptions are unavoidable mental model of how the computer works interface with other code ui/ux time pressure budget constraints KKL
51. mitigations accept that mental models are flawed accept that you will make mistakes start small iterate keep it simple let external people test embrace change build a culture around sharing knowledge build a common understanding code reviews learn to communicate drop your ego build a diverse team
56. https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2017/10/221326-a-large-scale-study-of-programming-languages-and-code-quality-in-github/fulltext
57. Funded by Mozilla First version: 2010 Version 1.0S May 2015 Current stable version: 1.38
58. Memory safety No undefined behavior Fearless concurrency HighXlevel language concepts Easily embeddable into existing projects Strong compiler checks
61. https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2017/10/221326-a-large-scale-study-of-programming-languages-and-code-quality-in-github/fulltext
65. Open Standard Language independent Safe sandbox Superfast Works everywhere
67. https://github.com/mre/awesome-static-analysis/
68. tool tips use safer languages (Rust, Ada, Coq, Idris) use sandboxes (Docker, WASM,KKL) Write tests Type systems it's 2019, get yourself an IDE use common libraries use linters (awesome static analysis) don't roll your own crypto!
69. foster creativity
77. accept failure beware of bias embrace change invest in tooling don't be a jerk
78. A
 Broken web, broken ping. Broken arrays, broken strings. D
 Broken cores, broken cache. A Virus, shellshock, broken bash. E
 No use rewritin’
 No use jokin’ 
 D Everything is broken.
79. A Broken mail, broken dates. Broken switches, glitchy games.
 D Broken planes, broken cars.
 A Broken rovers, left on mars.
 E Broken backups, data stolen. Everything is broken. 
 E Seem like every time you stop and turn around D
 Something else just hit the ground
80. A
 Broken Facebook, broken Slack Broken Windows, broken mac D
 Broken bytes, broken DOS A
 Broken scripts of broken bots E Display burnin, server smokin’ 
 D Everything is broken.
81. A Broken code on jailbroken phones. Broken crypto, broken consoles.
 D Broken pipes, broken tools.
 A Hackers bending broken rules;
 E Lost wallet with your Bitcoin tokens Everything is broken. 
 E Everytime you leave and go off someplace D
 Things fall to pieces in my face