5 ms·

It feels like a lot of "things everyone knows" are slowly getting lost over time, as developers work at higher and higher levels of abstraction without deep kno

It feels like a lot of "things everyone knows" are slowly getting lost over time, as developers work at higher and higher levels of abstraction without deep knowledge of the layers beneath them (which is of course the whole point of abstractions, but they're never perfect) Being a true "full stack" engineer is a superpower when it comes to performance optimisation, or vulnerability research.

doubled112 4y ago
I wanted to be a programmer as a kid, but eventually found it boring and switched to administering systems. Knowing how code works on systems IS a super power.
saagarjha 4y ago
Eh, that’s not really true. Adding abstraction allows for providing APIs that can handle cases like these correctly. For example, Apple provides a very capable versioning system for files that does “the right thing”, which in this case would create a new file for reliability.
- Retr0id 4y ago
  Sure, abstractions aren't inherently evil, but bad ones are. The abstraction you described sounds like a sensible one, which couldn't have been designed without a deep understanding of the system as a whole (or at the very least, the adjacent layers).
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    The people writing an abstraction need to understand the system, but if done correctly the people using it don’t.
    - namaria 4y ago
      All abstractions leak. There are some physical facts about software we keep denying for some reason. There is no silver bullet. Every enterprise systems turns into a big ball of mud over time. Team structures get imprinted in the design of systems built by these teams. And every abstraction leaks. Living on a given level without at least an accurate mental model of everything bellow it limits your ability as a developer. Sure you can just do scripting for a web dev team your whole career. If that's what you want...
      - saagarjha 4y ago
        Water dissolves pretty much everything too and yet we build structures that are useful even when it rains. Likewise, all software engineers get through their careers without learning most things. It’s totally fine, as long as they understand how to poke at a leaky abstraction when necessary. If atomic file renames is a performance problem for them, or it’s breaking hardlinks, or one of the several other ways that this would leak on them, then they can go learn what’s going on and update their understanding as necessary. Good abstractions aren’t watertight but rather don’t leak in unexpected and dangerous ways.
        namaria 4y ago
        Hey some people spend a working life just painting bridges without understanding anything about structural engineering. Your choices matter to you not to society.

doubled112 4y ago

I wanted to be a programmer as a kid, but eventually found it boring and switched to administering systems. Knowing how code works on systems IS a super power.

saagarjha 4y ago

Eh, that’s not really true. Adding abstraction allows for providing APIs that can handle cases like these correctly. For example, Apple provides a very capable versioning system for files that does “the right thing”, which in this case would create a new file for reliability.

Retr0id 4y ago
Sure, abstractions aren't inherently evil, but bad ones are. The abstraction you described sounds like a sensible one, which couldn't have been designed without a deep understanding of the system as a whole (or at the very least, the adjacent layers).
- saagarjha 4y ago
  The people writing an abstraction need to understand the system, but if done correctly the people using it don’t.
  - namaria 4y ago
    All abstractions leak. There are some physical facts about software we keep denying for some reason. There is no silver bullet. Every enterprise systems turns into a big ball of mud over time. Team structures get imprinted in the design of systems built by these teams. And every abstraction leaks. Living on a given level without at least an accurate mental model of everything bellow it limits your ability as a developer. Sure you can just do scripting for a web dev team your whole career. If that's what you want...
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      Water dissolves pretty much everything too and yet we build structures that are useful even when it rains. Likewise, all software engineers get through their careers without learning most things. It’s totally fine, as long as they understand how to poke at a leaky abstraction when necessary. If atomic file renames is a performance problem for them, or it’s breaking hardlinks, or one of the several other ways that this would leak on them, then they can go learn what’s going on and update their understanding as necessary. Good abstractions aren’t watertight but rather don’t leak in unexpected and dangerous ways.
      - namaria 4y ago
        Hey some people spend a working life just painting bridges without understanding anything about structural engineering. Your choices matter to you not to society.