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I quite like layered dependency structures. I even have a lua codebase where I've linearized the sourcecode files into a particular order. The layout looks li

by gyulai 3y ago

I quite like layered dependency structures. I even have a lua codebase where I've linearized the sourcecode files into a particular order. The layout looks like this: 01_foo/ 03_foo.lua 04_bar.lua 15_whatever.lua 02_bar/ 22_whatever.lua 56_something.lua It has always bothered me in codebases that they don't have a "beginning" and an "end", and therefore it's difficult for a reader to know where to start when they just want to read the codebase. So, my approach is to impose this linear order and only allow code that comes later to depend on code that comes earlier, never the other way around. This way, you can read through the code rather easily. As you look at any piece of code, it will only depend on code you've already looked at, so you don't have to be constantly jumping through the codebase as you're reading. I've also found that failure to correspond to a linearizable dependency structure is a "code smell", and that, as I try to eradicate that code smell, I frequently end up with code that's better in all kinds of ways.

globalreset 3y ago
That sounds like one of the things they could write about in dailywtf. First, who has time to read a project from start to beginning. Second, as the time changes the dependencies between parts will change as well.
- gyulai 3y ago
  Who has time to write documentation? As the software evolves, the documentation will need changing. Who has time to write unit tests? As the modules evolve, the unit tests will need updating. Why do any of these things? A well-written piece of code that actually solves a complex problem is a demanding mistress and doesn't appreciate the "who has time..." attitude. Among the software engineering good practices that I engage in, I'm finding this to be one of the highest bang-for-the-buck ones. For example, literate programming is a thing that many people believe is worth the effort, at least in certain scenarios and at least for certain parts of codebases: But, if you can make your codebase more readable without requiring additional prose to be written, then that's a comparatively high bang-for-the-buck alternative. In practice, linear structure doesn't need all that much updating at all: You may have noticed that I don't use strictly sequential numbers. Early in the life of the codebase, I will generally skip lots of numbers, so that I can fill in the gaps with code that comes later. Mostly, all it really takes is to be intentional about where in the linear order to insert new code. Also, note that it's still useful, even if no one ever goes on a mission to read the codebase in its entirety. If the codebase as a whole has a linear structure, that also imposes a linear structure on any subset of it. If you have five sourcecode files that are somehow pertinent to something you're doing, you immediately know the order in which to look at them.
  - globalreset 3y ago
    Large part of biggest crimes I've seen in software comes down to picking some allegedly good property and optimizing for it irrespective of costs and limitations it involves. Encapsulation, modularity, flexibility, readability, purity, testability - you name it. Some dubious, some reasonable - no matter what, it usually involves costs and drawbacks. I have 99 big problems developing software, and not being able to read it from start to end ain't one. I'm a bit jealous for people advocating such things, being able to work on software tiny enough to even be able to think this is practical. Literate programming could work for tiny software that can be approximately flattened to a 1d "story": "beginning -> end" with only minor detours. Most of projects I worked with was large enough that things are optimized precisely for not having to understand large parts that were abstracted away (and the problem is to try to do it without introducing too much complexity).
    - gyulai 3y ago
      It's not so much about the size of the codebase, it's more about the tradeoff of how much code there is, versus how much intrinsic/real complexity. By "real" complexity, I mean to exclude complexity for complexity's sake, or complexity that's a side effect of a piece of software being concerned with itself and its own structure rather than with solving any problem that exists outside of it. -- We can surely all agree that the latter is bad. Academic prototypes, for example, tend to solve highly complex problems with small codebases, but the problems are often contrived or they are tiny pieces of systems that would have to be much larger to be of any use. Software systems you encounter in your run-of-the-mill software engineering business often have huge codebases, but the large size is not due to the fact that there's any problem there of any real complexity. The system just needs to solve trivial problems, and there are just a lot of them. But you can certainly have systems that need to solve many problems and some of those problems have high intrinsic complexity. In such a scenario, it's important to recognize that there's a part of your system that's "extra special" due to its complexity, and needs to be approached in a way that's different from how you approach most of your engineering. You might need to write a library in a literate programming style, and then use that library from your other code, which isn't written in literate style. Engineering organizations are seldom able to have that kind of flexibility. The opinion you're likely to get is "we don't do literate programming here". The outcome is that such organizations are just not capable of writing such systems, because a system is only as good as the worst job you've done at solving any of the problems it raises. I'd also like to point out that you're guilty of a bit of a strawman argument there, because all I did was point out a technique I sometimes find useful, and you responded as if I was advocating applying it "irrespective of costs and drawbacks" by pointing out that this often ends up as "crimes against software".
banashark 3y ago
This was always one of my favorite parts of f#. It’s not only mandated for structures within a file (no hoisting), but also for files within a project. Reading and understanding an f# code base has always been vastly more simple to me than the incredible indirection of some other codebases (trying to find where the provider for the factory of the abstract class member that’s an interface implemented by 10 almost exactly similar c# classes? Good luck /s)
IshKebab 3y ago
I also work on a codebase that has to have a particular order (because the compiler doesn't support any kind of modules or interfaces). It's a nightmare. Very difficult to follow.
samsquire 3y ago
I really like this idea, it reminds me of my "entrypoints" folder idea. The idea is you put the file where everything is registered or started in one place. Such as int main() {} and your dependency inversion container or controllers.
electroly 3y ago
In F# you have to order your source files and it sucks, hard. It's not typically considered a benefit but rather an unfortunate side effect of how F# works that you have to just live with.
- gyulai 3y ago
  > [...] It's not typically considered a benefit[...] ...see sibling comment, where the commenter does seem to imply they rather like it.
  - electroly 3y ago
    I stand by my statement. Sibling comment is not typical. There's a reason that file order is rare among programming languages. Languages never decide to mandate this out of the blue when their language design doesn't otherwise require file order; it's something you only mandate if you can't implement orderless files. You get a bunch of nice properties when they're not strictly ordered, like compiling files in parallel, rebuilding an earlier file without having to rebuild a later file, etc. In F#, compilation is forced to start at the first modified file and proceed linearly to the end of the project. OP's technique, notably, avoids these problems by numbering the files but not actually mandating at the compiler/language level that they be ordered. Here they are acting as a hint to the programmer but the files are still, as far as the language is concerned, orderless. That would seem to be a nice compromise if you like the idea of an ordered codebase. More of a literate programming technique.
    - gyulai 3y ago
      Is that just because F# is a typed language? My personal experience has been that it's a pain to implement this as soon as you have strong typing and try to avoid "unsafe" casts. For example, in modern Java, if you have some kind of a Container<T> over elements of type T, and a matching ContainerIterator<T>, you will want some way in each of the type declarations to refer to the other type declaration, so you need cyclical imports. If you look at it through the lens of a dynamically-typed language like Python 3.4 or Lua, the problem just disappears. This is the case to a lesser extent even for Java before it had generics, and collections were just collections of Object, and you used "unsafe" casts all the time. I am finding this practice not the slightest bit limiting in Lua, nor do I get the feeling that the readability of my code suffers in any way at all. (Rather the contrary, as I've pointed out before).

by gyulai 3y ago

globalreset 3y ago

That sounds like one of the things they could write about in dailywtf. First, who has time to read a project from start to beginning. Second, as the time changes the dependencies between parts will change as well.

gyulai 3y ago
Who has time to write documentation? As the software evolves, the documentation will need changing. Who has time to write unit tests? As the modules evolve, the unit tests will need updating. Why do any of these things? A well-written piece of code that actually solves a complex problem is a demanding mistress and doesn't appreciate the "who has time..." attitude. Among the software engineering good practices that I engage in, I'm finding this to be one of the highest bang-for-the-buck ones. For example, literate programming is a thing that many people believe is worth the effort, at least in certain scenarios and at least for certain parts of codebases: But, if you can make your codebase more readable without requiring additional prose to be written, then that's a comparatively high bang-for-the-buck alternative. In practice, linear structure doesn't need all that much updating at all: You may have noticed that I don't use strictly sequential numbers. Early in the life of the codebase, I will generally skip lots of numbers, so that I can fill in the gaps with code that comes later. Mostly, all it really takes is to be intentional about where in the linear order to insert new code. Also, note that it's still useful, even if no one ever goes on a mission to read the codebase in its entirety. If the codebase as a whole has a linear structure, that also imposes a linear structure on any subset of it. If you have five sourcecode files that are somehow pertinent to something you're doing, you immediately know the order in which to look at them.
- globalreset 3y ago
  Large part of biggest crimes I've seen in software comes down to picking some allegedly good property and optimizing for it irrespective of costs and limitations it involves. Encapsulation, modularity, flexibility, readability, purity, testability - you name it. Some dubious, some reasonable - no matter what, it usually involves costs and drawbacks. I have 99 big problems developing software, and not being able to read it from start to end ain't one. I'm a bit jealous for people advocating such things, being able to work on software tiny enough to even be able to think this is practical. Literate programming could work for tiny software that can be approximately flattened to a 1d "story": "beginning -> end" with only minor detours. Most of projects I worked with was large enough that things are optimized precisely for not having to understand large parts that were abstracted away (and the problem is to try to do it without introducing too much complexity).
  - gyulai 3y ago
    It's not so much about the size of the codebase, it's more about the tradeoff of how much code there is, versus how much intrinsic/real complexity. By "real" complexity, I mean to exclude complexity for complexity's sake, or complexity that's a side effect of a piece of software being concerned with itself and its own structure rather than with solving any problem that exists outside of it. -- We can surely all agree that the latter is bad. Academic prototypes, for example, tend to solve highly complex problems with small codebases, but the problems are often contrived or they are tiny pieces of systems that would have to be much larger to be of any use. Software systems you encounter in your run-of-the-mill software engineering business often have huge codebases, but the large size is not due to the fact that there's any problem there of any real complexity. The system just needs to solve trivial problems, and there are just a lot of them. But you can certainly have systems that need to solve many problems and some of those problems have high intrinsic complexity. In such a scenario, it's important to recognize that there's a part of your system that's "extra special" due to its complexity, and needs to be approached in a way that's different from how you approach most of your engineering. You might need to write a library in a literate programming style, and then use that library from your other code, which isn't written in literate style. Engineering organizations are seldom able to have that kind of flexibility. The opinion you're likely to get is "we don't do literate programming here". The outcome is that such organizations are just not capable of writing such systems, because a system is only as good as the worst job you've done at solving any of the problems it raises. I'd also like to point out that you're guilty of a bit of a strawman argument there, because all I did was point out a technique I sometimes find useful, and you responded as if I was advocating applying it "irrespective of costs and drawbacks" by pointing out that this often ends up as "crimes against software".

banashark 3y ago

This was always one of my favorite parts of f#. It’s not only mandated for structures within a file (no hoisting), but also for files within a project. Reading and understanding an f# code base has always been vastly more simple to me than the incredible indirection of some other codebases (trying to find where the provider for the factory of the abstract class member that’s an interface implemented by 10 almost exactly similar c# classes? Good luck /s)

IshKebab 3y ago

I also work on a codebase that has to have a particular order (because the compiler doesn't support any kind of modules or interfaces). It's a nightmare. Very difficult to follow.

samsquire 3y ago

I really like this idea, it reminds me of my "entrypoints" folder idea. The idea is you put the file where everything is registered or started in one place. Such as int main() {} and your dependency inversion container or controllers.

electroly 3y ago

In F# you have to order your source files and it sucks, hard. It's not typically considered a benefit but rather an unfortunate side effect of how F# works that you have to just live with.

gyulai 3y ago
> [...] It's not typically considered a benefit[...] ...see sibling comment, where the commenter does seem to imply they rather like it.
- electroly 3y ago
  I stand by my statement. Sibling comment is not typical. There's a reason that file order is rare among programming languages. Languages never decide to mandate this out of the blue when their language design doesn't otherwise require file order; it's something you only mandate if you can't implement orderless files. You get a bunch of nice properties when they're not strictly ordered, like compiling files in parallel, rebuilding an earlier file without having to rebuild a later file, etc. In F#, compilation is forced to start at the first modified file and proceed linearly to the end of the project. OP's technique, notably, avoids these problems by numbering the files but not actually mandating at the compiler/language level that they be ordered. Here they are acting as a hint to the programmer but the files are still, as far as the language is concerned, orderless. That would seem to be a nice compromise if you like the idea of an ordered codebase. More of a literate programming technique.
  - gyulai 3y ago
    Is that just because F# is a typed language? My personal experience has been that it's a pain to implement this as soon as you have strong typing and try to avoid "unsafe" casts. For example, in modern Java, if you have some kind of a Container<T> over elements of type T, and a matching ContainerIterator<T>, you will want some way in each of the type declarations to refer to the other type declaration, so you need cyclical imports. If you look at it through the lens of a dynamically-typed language like Python 3.4 or Lua, the problem just disappears. This is the case to a lesser extent even for Java before it had generics, and collections were just collections of Object, and you used "unsafe" casts all the time. I am finding this practice not the slightest bit limiting in Lua, nor do I get the feeling that the readability of my code suffers in any way at all. (Rather the contrary, as I've pointed out before).