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Architecting large software projects [video]
- habitue 1y agoStarted watching, but "C89 is the safe option for long lived software" kind of turned me off. There are plenty of safe long lived stable languages out there where you dont have to manually manipulate memory. At the very least, this guy should be advocating for Java. But even that's too far really. Like it or not, "shiny fad" languages like Python & Javascript have been around forever, support for them isn't going away, this should be a non-concern at the architectural level. (Bigger language concerns: is it performant enough for my expected use? Does it have strong types to help with correctness? Can I hire programmers who know it? etc)
- mahalex 1y ago> languages like Python & Javascript have been around forever, support for them isn't going away ??? Python 2 went out of support five years ago.
- habitue 1y agoI mean C89 has no support, it's not getting an update or a bugfix, the standard is what it is. So if vendor support is your overriding concern, you should be constantly updating your software to LTS versions. I meant support in terms of there's an active community of people using the language and building things with it. It's not going to die as a language like Algol 68 or Pascal.
- mahalex 1y agoIs there an active community of people using Python 2 and building things with it? Meanwhile, there are plenty of actively maintained compilers for C89.
- leecommamichael 1y agoC89 still has an active community of people using the language and building things with it. In addition to this, its existence and validity is still relied on by basically every other language via standard library, transient dependency, or calling convention. Heck, practically every C++ project probably depends on it. The Linux Kernel, ffmpeg, SQLite, curl and many others chose C89 and often consider using C99, but most do not. Each of those projects also write at-length via newsletter or blog as to why they’re still not quite ready to update (and sometimes why they are.)
- uecker 1y agoThe Linux kernel and ffmpeg require C11.
- leecommamichael 1y agoYes, “chose” in past-tense (and that whole clause about the tension displayed in public communications of these projects contemplating the change. Both projects made this change in the last couple years. ffmpeg still requires c99 compatibility for their headers, and may indefinitely.
- uecker 1y agoWhen Linux was created, there was not much choice. In reality, most active projects moved on and only projects with relatively extreme portability requirements stick with C89, mostly because MSVC does not support anything later properly.
- leecommamichael 1y agoI think that’s fair, but I also believe that the same things that make C89 meet “extreme portability requirements” are why Eskil still uses it. Should everyone? No, probably not.
- uecker 1y ago
- unclad5968 1y agoI have two different compilers that implement C89 on my computer right now and I know of at least one other. How much support do you require before you consider something supported?
- alexott 1y agoIt really depends. I was at talk of architect of car company when he was talking about need to develop and support a car software for 20-30 years - few years before release, 10-20 years of production, and the critical fixes after end of support. And it includes not only soft itself, but all compilers, etc.
- kod 1y agoThe "one module should be written by only one person" dogma is kind of interesting. But I got to the "my wrapper around SDL supports multiple simultaneous mouse inputs, even though no operating system does" and noped out. YAGNI, even in a large project
- leecommamichael 1y agoHe’s sitting at a system that thousands of people built together simultaneously. We have gripes with our OSes but they’re all capable of nearly perfect uptime (depending on the hardware and workload.) So I am not convinced individuals need to own modules. I think it’s good for things to work that way, but not necessary. I didn’t find much fault at all with what he’s saying about SDL. It’s just an example of the “layered design” he’s advocating for. You may have drawn your conclusion a little early; he immediately follows up with his API for graphics, which is actually a very practical example. He’s really just saying people should consider writing their own APIs even if it’s implemented with a library, because you can select exactly how complex the API needs to be for your app’s requirements. This makes the task of replacing a dependency much simpler. He’s actually trying to prevent relying on things you don’t need. YAGNI.
- barbazoo 1y ago> YAGNI “You Aren’t Gonna Need It”
- bestspharma 1y ago[dead]
- bestspharma 1y ago[dead]
- mjr00 1y ago> Don't ever implement good-enough-for-now APIs Agree in theory, in practice this is impossible. Even if you're an absolute domain expert in whatever you're doing, software and requirements will evolve and you will end up needing to implement something for which your current API is not suitable. Just ask S3:ListObjectsV2 or golangs' `encoding/json/v2` etc. I push back hard on this one because a lot of developers will try to be "clever" and basically turn their api into def my_api(parameters: dict[str, str]) -> dict[str, str]: or an equivalent, and now you have an API which theoretically can handle any requirement, but does so in a way that's extremely unfriendly and painful to use. It's better to accept that your API will change at some point and have a versioning and deprecation strategy in place. With well-architected software this usually isn't hard.
- imglorp 1y agoYes, and also don't try to anticipate everything by implementing features that won't be used soon, ie "just in case". If the soon turns to never, any unused feature is basically dead code and represents future costs and constraints to maintain or remove it.
- leecommamichael 1y agoYeah, it’s too hard of a rule. In reality interfaces have points of resistance; where they aren’t really helping you do what you’re wanting, and they have fitting-points where they do what you need done. I’d argue it’s your job to strike some kind of balance there. If you know you’re working with something stable, why settle for good-enough? Well, because the task of assessing what is stable requires years of mistakes, and good-enough varies drastically between languages. I think I see a point here for using primitive C; there’s hardly a type-system to waste time with, but you can cut yourself with macros. This is why I use Odin.
- hk1337 1y agoI would add a caveat... Don't ever implement good-enough-for-now APIs without a plan to come back and fix it and a deadline to fix it Most of the time "good-enough-for-now" really is just "good-enough-forever".
- boricj 1y agoI've seen relational database schemas degenerating into untyped free-for-all key-values because they weren't expressive enough. I've seen massive code duplication (and massive amounts of bugs) because no one invested into a quality core set of libraries to address basic use-cases of a given platform. I've seen systems crumbling under tech debt because of chronic prioritization of features over maintenance. I've worked on large software projects. The only ones I've met that weren't dreadful to work on had engineering and management working together with a shared, coherent vision.
- tracker1 1y agoI think the "how easy will this be to replace" question should be a guiding factor in terms of some architectural decisions. Having modular code, and abstractions can add a lot of value, but if you do it in a way that locks you down and makes everything it touches a multiple in terms of complexity, is it really worth it. One thing I often do, in terms of modularizing, especially for re-share or external use is sit down and think about the ergonomics of what I'm creating and how I would like to be able to use/consume said module... often writing documentation before writing the code.
- brettgriffin 1y agoI watched the first half hour of this earlier this week. I was surprised at just how differently two people can view the world. I'm not sure I would be as dogmatic as him, but just using the first few points, I think you can make strong cases against: 1. Everything is exposed as an API with little no insight to inner workings (black box) 2. Everything should be broken down into modules at a level where one person works on that module 3. He shows a video of his video editor, saying it supports multiple inputs (like two keyboards or two mice), then says no platform supports it, but if they ever do, it will work 4. Don't implement 'good enough apis' I hope that anybody who has ever worked on software understands that there are virtues to doing exactly the opposite of what is described in each of these points. Even if you can make an argument for any of these, you would have to qualify them with so many exceptions that you would effectively negate the entire argument. I spent a lot of evenings early in my career watching similar videos, hoping to find some magic bullet in how people better than me do what I do. People make a living doing this on the conference circuit. Maybe it is a fools errand to try to distill something as complex and situationally dependent as software into a video, but I'm having a hard time finding any major insights in all of the videos I watched.
- ribelo 1y agoHe basically just described the FCIS[0] architecture—the same one Gary Bernhart laid out thirteen years ago. We love reinventing the wheel. Chaplicki did it with ELM, Abramov with Redux, day8 did it with re-frame, and the beat goes on. I’m still amazed it isn’t obvious: every piece of software should be a black box with a pin-hole for input and an even tinier pin-hole for output. The best code I’ve ever touched worked exactly like that and maintaining it was a pleasure, everything else was garbage. I push this rule in every project I touch. [0] https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/functional-core-imperative-shell https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/funct...
- leecommamichael 1y agoCould you point to the place in the video that you felt resembled this principle most? I don’t really see the connection, but am open to it.
- gashmol 1y agoAside - Why do we need the word "architecting" anyway? Why not just use designing?
- leecommamichael 1y agoArchitecting at least somewhat harkens to engineering; where there are costs, limits, tolerances, and to some degree aesthetics.
- gashmol 1y agoI'm pretty sure every engineering field calls it designing. Perhaps software devs feel a need to inflate what they actually do.
- corytheboyd 1y agoIn my (software) experience, the terms are basically interchangeable. Some people will violently defend “architect right, design wrong” and others the opposite, So uh, pretty hard for me, a normal person, to care much about which word is right for the “you sit down and think before you build” part of software engineering.
- bsoles 1y ago> the “you sit down and think before you build” part of software engineering. Well, Agile, Scrum, and backlogs took care of that. /s
- toolslive 1y agoIn my country, we have both the academic title "engineer", and "engineer architect". People view this as "proper engineer" and "not so proper engineer". Anyway, "you sit down and think before you build" is indeed what you want and the word for that is "strategy".
- degamad 1y agoI think the analogy is to construction, not engineering. In construction, architects and designers do different jobs. The software equivalents of those roles map reasonably well to the construction equivalents.
- yuvadam 1y agoObligatory mention of A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout as the arguably the most important book every developer should read to understand proper modularization and complexity management.
- namuol 1y agoAges ago, before I had any real professional experience, I was blown away by Steenberg’s demos and enamored by his tech talks. The demos still impress me and have aged well, but today I’m glad I didn’t fall into the trap of taking his development advice as scripture. His name has been popping up a lot more recently. I would be worried about the impact he might be having on young programmers, but honestly I doubt his worst advice would survive in industry anyway. I didn’t watch this particular video but his recent talk at Better Software Conference was illuminating, in a bad way.
- h4ch1 1y agoI am assuming you're talking about this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGLoKbBn-VI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGLoKbBn-VI The title is the only good thing about this talk, his whole ideology about building a WRAPPER around everything and maintaining hundreds of these wrappers is going to make you NEVER finish a single project. Also it just feels like this entire talk is an advert for C89, I do enjoy playing with the language sometimes especially when I want to scratch my software architecture itch (I use it kind of like pseudocode to develop a data model for my application), but it's simply not a silver bullet. I've been watching his screencasts on and off for a couple of years and am always slightly aghast at how he can be really spot on about some very specific things and be wildly off the mark about most of the things regarding software design/architecture. Anyway, people should finish projects, that's the most important part, my 50 weekend projects and 12 registered domains have been screaming this at me for years.
- kthxb 1y agoI feel like a lot of his takes -- like c89 being the best -- may be true in the context of the kind of complex desktop applications he seems to develop, but not universally applicable. Still, he gives a lot of good advice and fundamental engineering rules.
- SCdF 1y agoSo I watched about 15 minutes. I'm not already aware of this person, and their website isn't too illuminating, and there is an hour left. So I have to confess I closed the tab. His ideas feel, frankly, like catnip for developers. Each dev writes there own modules, so you get to do whatever you want without having to deal with other people's coding styles or philosophies (or better ideas), and no meetings, and you also spend the "right" amount of time building everything. But it doesn't sound like it would work on "LARGE" (his capitals) software projects, at least none that I've worked on. In those, creating modules small enough to be built once by one dev would just push all discussion (and dreaded meetings) into the API layer, with double the meetings because you should get it right first time, actually double them again because the strategy if someone leaves and their modules aren't right is to just reimplement them so you have to be even more sure they are thoughtfully designed. It actually sounds like a pitch for agentic coding: if you define your APIs small enough and correctly enough, you don't need to worry about implementation quality, so just let the api do it. I think it's a good way of thinking about it, and thinking about all the ways in which you might not be comfortable with that. Anyway, what do I know? Maybe he's a super expert on this stuff. I would gentle suggest, if he redid the talk, to open with a) what he means by LARGE software projects, and b) an example where this strategy he is about to explain has been implemented.
- CopyOnWrite 1y agoIMHO there are a lot of problems with the advice from Eskil. His ideas about abstraction of the platform made a lot of sense in the past decades, but IMHO are not that applicable nowadays: It is well understood to separate domain logic from UI and storage, and a desktop application has a very different UI from a mobile app or even a web app. My next critic point is, that Eskil assumes all domain knowledge is there from the beginning and will not change over time (his idea of having perfect APIs from the beginning). No mention about error handling, reliability, response times, atomic operations etc. To make it very clear: I believe Eskil gives his advice in good faith and his advice served him well in his own projects. In my opinion most of his advice is just not good advice in general. (Besides having modules as black box building blocks if possible).
- grumpy_coder 1y agoYeah, I think the first mistake is thinking 'large software project' is specific enough to have any good advice at all. Large software projects could include AAA console videogame, or banking mobile app, or embedded vehicle entertainment system, or airport baggage handling system, or hundreds of other totally different domains. The only good advice I can think of is given a large software project try to hire someone (or a whole team) that have built something pretty similar before.
- mrkeen 1y ago6:55> "C98" 7:05> "It's faster to write five lines of code today, than to write one line today, and have to edit it in the future" This is my experience writing C as well, which is why I now avoid it. There are plenty of times where writing something in C seems like it would be simpler and more reliable than in other languages. But I found I couldn't edit it. Too many of my assumptions get baked into the code and I can't see them later.
- pxska 1y agoI'm about 4 years into my career (mostly self-taught and learned-on-the-job), and I actually found Eskil's talk inspiring. The part that hit me hardest (in the good sense) was "don’t implement good-enough APIs." As someone still figuring out my footing, I often feel pretty torn: should I train myself to always push for the cleanest (or near-perfect) design I can manage (as books like "The Pragmatic Programmer" and talks like this suggest), or is that just setting myself up for frustration in industry where pragmatism and deadlines usually win? What worries me is exactly what some people here are saying – that "temporary" APIs usually last forever. I’ve already seen that on my team. So part of me wants to internalize Eskil's idealism early, even if it means clashing with more pragmatic coworkers. For those of you with decades of experience: if you were mentoring someone at my stage, would you tell them to lean toward ideals (aiming high, then compromising when needed), or to embrace trade-offs and "good enough" thinking from the start?