alan.codegardener.com
Passionate Rubyist. Empathetic leader. Fallible human. Storyteller. Speaker. Environmentalist. Feminist. Ally. Swell photographer. Rusty drummer. Loving husband & twins dad.
Owner of too many hats, given I only have the one head.
the.codegardener.com
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San Francisco Ruby Conference on November 19-20: sfruby.com!
And you got to stay for Friday, 21, for unofficial events š
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@alan.codegardener.com and @fito.codegardener.com talk about the tragedy of the successful software ā Meraki with over 4M LOC #Rails monolith, looking for new architecture to support maintainability at this scale: modularity and boundaries.
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If you have to change your tests when you change your code, you're testing implementation, not behavior. Test behavior.
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Gall's Law states that complex systems that work evolve from simpler systems that worked, and complex systems designed from scratch rarely, if ever, work.
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Solve one thing at a time. If, after doing so, you discover a pattern, extract a more abstract solution from the concrete solutions. Never start with the abstract solution.
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Youād have to ask @jasonswett.bsky.social.
If I had to guess, Iād say because the Tropicana is no more.
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I should have posted the truffula tree image up front.
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Admittedly, inventing a system that could plant an entire forest seems less bad the one that cuts down the whole forest. And I was trying to communicate how bad premature generalization isā¦
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"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
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It was a reference to The Lorax.
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The tree is a metaphor for a feature. Youāre asked to build one feature. But you go build a framework instead. Stop that! Just build the damn feature!
Youāll never have less information than when you begin. Wait for more info (5+ instances) before extracting a framework.
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Wait a second! I thought strongly typed languages with compilers were the answer to all bugs! š
Or, was it tests? I forget. It might have been tests. š«
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No matter how many monitors, position 1 of them directly in front of your keyboard to minimize twisting the neck & spine.
Additional monitors should be placed in peripheral vision, like dressing room mirrors.
Do you _really_ prefer virtual desktops over actual monitors? Really???
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We need to be educating engineers NOW on how to write automated specifications well. That will be THE most critical skill moving forward -- writing self-verifying prompts using automated specifications.
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Developer tools will be able to accept a test, generate some code, run the test, and regenerate the code in a loop until the test passes.
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Generative AI Tomorrow
Automated specifications are the future of software development. Get used to TDD. That will become the largest part of an engineerās job in the near future.
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I believe we are witnessing the transition of the role of programmer from human to machine. What we are not (yet) witnessing is the transition of the role of software designer/architect. We will still need to own the big picture for a while longer at least.
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Generative AI Today
Iāve had some amazing conversational experiences with LLMs. Stunning, really. Iāve also found success prompting ChatGPT, Claude, and Deepseek with automated specifications for a single class. All 3 wrote code that passed the tests just by prompting them with the specifications.
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California knows no bounds!
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How can spring be here? It's 3ĀŗC in January! Why are those blossoms blooming?!?!
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Depends on the coffee shop and the line.
I had a snotty barista at Peteās berate me for using the word venti. āWhat is that? We have small, medium, and large!ā Iāll be ordering from the app every time I go in that particular store from now on.
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I like how the titles of your top 5 songs tell a tragic love story.
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That's the beauty of small talks like this. You can always sneak them in somewhere!
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Hi Gregory! Thanks for reading!
For the purpose of this post, I'm using the de facto "de-duplication" definition that so many code bases fall prey to.
@avdi.codes has already pointed out that The Prag Prog has the canonical definition of "good" DRY. That's not what we're talking about.
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Of course, that should have said "bug report" which is hilarious.
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First (really nit picky) but report... Guide should be capitalized.
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Just noting that this gem would require maintenance over time. And the changes would be expected pronto.
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There is a gem for time zones. They change. Theyāre not static. Same with countries. In fact, country names are different depending on who you ask. Taiwan is one. Western Sahara is another.
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My preferred way to build applications is to TDD one class per use case. A to-do list, for example, has a `CreateTask` class. `CompleteTask`, `RankTask` and others make perfect sense as independent classes in that context. Then I add persistence and an interface. In Ruby that often means Rails.
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Show them this talk (sorry for the self promotion): youtu.be/4b4Ew_BUdrY?...
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I think we're on to something here. So much of the code I see has been de-duplicated in a way that makes it harder to understand and harder to modify/test/extend. And, I do think it has to do with the acronym. I wonder what proposals we could make for a more expressive acronym?