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Artur Hebda "Code is not important...or is it?"
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Railsware
June 03, 2018
Technology
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Artur Hebda "Code is not important...or is it?"
Artur's presentation at RubyC-2018
Railsware
June 03, 2018
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Transcript
Code is not important… Artur Hebda Railsware Labs or is
it?
Context of code Product story Building vision Growing structure Pro
t-d i n me k }
We’re not hired to just write code.
Image: https://www.washingtontimes.com Not available for 6 hours +6500 calls discarded
11 mln people affected Reason : counter overflow 911 outage in USA
“Software engineers don’t understand the problem they’re trying to solve,
and don’t care to. Nancy Leveson, Software-safety expert, MIT
Code always exists within a product context.
Customers pay for the value product delivers to them.
“It’s great to rewrite your code and make it cleaner
and by the third time it’ll actually be pretty. But that’s not the point. Joel Spolsky
We’re hired to build & ship products.
Context of code Product story Building vision Growing structure Pro
t-d i n me k }
Motivation behind OrgMap What is going on?
Q : How it?
Q : How il s i on ?
Q : How su e?
Q : Wha t e t p e? +
+ + +
Seems strange… right? We used existing services / hack our
way through We leveraged product development through experiments We closed feature loops ... And eventually built our own product
“I don't know how to do this, so let's do
it the simplest way and we'll figure out.
Image: http://www.freeimages.co.uk Experiment to build something people want.
We have $50k of tech debt We embraced it to
learn a lot through experiments over the years Image: http://xarxanet.org
Context of code Product story Building vision Growing structure Pro
t-d i n me k }
Building vision constantly
Image: http://www.orlandospencer.com Product is a never consistent set of features
Split product into feature components
Have as much vision as you can Gather product group
Short-term / mid-term / long-term Based on current knowledge For each component
Short-term http://www.donsmaps.com/images29/middleearthlarg elargerstill.jpg Image: http://www.donsmaps.com
Make educated guess I think it would be good to
do...
Validate hypothesis with experiments A C B D
Natural tendency to predict further direction A C B D
E?
Refine vision A C B D Wrong Correct
A C B D Wrong Correct inflexibility Refine vision
Mid-term http://www.donsmaps.com/images29/middleearthlarg elargerstill.jpg Image: http://www.donsmaps.com
Customers ask for a feature I really need that.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would
have said: faster horses... Henry Ford
Q : Res t u s em t ?
Combined features
Demo - measure what is changing I like it, but
maybe if…
Long-term http://www.donsmaps.com/images29/middleearthlarg elargerstill.jpg Image: http://www.donsmaps.com
Actual customer validated stuff Usage ~ long-term
Context of code Product story Building vision Growing structure Pro
t-d i n me k }
Grow supporting structure Image: https://www.autodesk.com
“Good code (...) provides highest value for the lowest cost.
99 Bottles of OOP by Sandi Metz and Katrina Owen
Assess tech compliance to vision Gather tech leadership group Look
at architecture for each feature component See how it complies / supports vision
Increase code quality and structure rigidity as you head towards
long-term
Build experimental structure for short-term vision Get answers Acquire knowledge
Image: http://freeimages.com
Improve structure for mid-term vision Clean up after experiments Reflect
acquired knowledge Image: https://www.bonsaiempire.com
Build rigid structure for long-term vision Image: https://www.maxpixel.net Stabilize and
scale
Maintain reasonable code quality for everything Low quality will slow
you down Code without tests is harder to refactor Automate code quality assessment Automate processes - CI & CD
99 Bottles of OOP by S. Metz & K. Owen
https://www.sandimetz.com/99bottles/
Practice thorough PR reviews Do self-review before asking someone else
Assess what cannot be automated yet Review like you would have to continue working on that right away
Reduce tech debt for the vision one step at a
time
What is tech debt? Not only TODO and FIXME Rem
r i l il ?
Make tech debt transparent Image: http://stocksmasters.com
Prioritise tech debt 5.times { why? }
Handle tech debt from backlog
“Make the change easy (warning: this may be hard), then
make the easy change. Kent Beck
Boy Scout Rule - now or later?
Do not refactor without vision
“You should not reach for abstractions (...) resist them until
they absolutely insist upon being created. 99 Bottles of OOP by Sandi Metz and Katrina Owen
Give yourself enough flexibility
Have strategic discussions Rails? React?
Summary Code exists in a product context, hence supports it
Use product vision as a guidance for code Prefer understandability and let abstractions emerge Address inflexibility where it matters
One more thing...
So… is code important or not?
So… is code important or not? As important as value
it creates.
Thank you! Questions? Follow @railsware
Thank you! Questions? Follow @railsware
Thank you! Questions? Follow @railsware