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Essays on programming I think about a lot

benkuhn.net

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Re: Essays on programming I think about a lot

#11

Post by JoeSmithson »

lmm wrote: post #8
simonw wrote: post #2

So glad to see the Law of Leaky Abstractions in there - that's had a very long-running impact on how I think about programming. It's still super-relevant today, nearly 18 years after it was published. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-leaky-a...

It's nonsense, written because Joel had never used a language with a decent type system. Any Haskell programmer uses half a dozen non-leaking abstractions before breakfast. Even the examples in the post itself don't hold up - using UDP instead of TCP doesn't actually mean your program will work any better when someone unplugs the network cable.

The reason UDP is less leaky is not because it meets any guarantee better, but because it guarantees less

Re: Essays on programming I think about a lot

#12

Post by dimitar »

nordsieck wrote: post #6

Sadly it's a video/presentation, not an essay, but Simple Made Easy[1] is the single software argument that has made the most impact on me. ___ 1. https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy/

There is a transcript here: https://github.com/matthiasn/talk-transcripts/blob/master/Hi...

Re: Essays on programming I think about a lot

#15

Post by bryanrasmussen »

holografix wrote: post #3
simonw wrote: post #2

So glad to see the Law of Leaky Abstractions in there - that's had a very long-running impact on how I think about programming. It's still super-relevant today, nearly 18 years after it was published. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-leaky-a...

I’m going through the conversation with a colleague atm where he believes DRY applies to everything.

by everything you mean outside of programming also? Or just in programming? I guess I find DRY pretty important for me, as a tool to force me to abstract and to help me understand the system I'm working on.

Re: Essays on programming I think about a lot

#16

Post by 3PS »

lmm wrote: post #8
simonw wrote: post #2

So glad to see the Law of Leaky Abstractions in there - that's had a very long-running impact on how I think about programming. It's still super-relevant today, nearly 18 years after it was published. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-leaky-a...

It's nonsense, written because Joel had never used a language with a decent type system. Any Haskell programmer uses half a dozen non-leaking abstractions before breakfast. Even the examples in the post itself don't hold up - using UDP instead of TCP doesn't actually mean your program will work any better when someone unplugs the network cable.

Interesting that you mentioned Haskell. In my experience, I've found that every type having a bottom makes a lot of abstractions leaky.

Re: Essays on programming I think about a lot

#17

Post by lmm »

3PS wrote: post #16
lmm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nonsense, written because Joel had never used a language with a decent type system. Any Haskell programmer uses half a dozen non-leaking abstractions before breakfast. Even the examples in the post itself don't hold up - using UDP instead of TCP doesn't actually mean your program will work any better when someone unplugs the network cable.

Interesting that you mentioned Haskell. In my experience, I've found that every type having a bottom makes a lot of abstractions leaky.

1. Every type has a bottom in every mainstream language, most of them are just less explicit about it.

2. Bottoms do not make abstractions leaky in some generalised sense. The "fast and loose reasoning is morally correct" result applies: any abstraction that would be valid in a language without bottoms is still valid wherever it evaluates to a non-bottom value.

Re: Essays on programming I think about a lot

#20

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

holografix wrote: post #3
simonw wrote: post #2

So glad to see the Law of Leaky Abstractions in there - that's had a very long-running impact on how I think about programming. It's still super-relevant today, nearly 18 years after it was published. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-leaky-a...

I’m going through the conversation with a colleague atm where he believes DRY applies to everything.

It usually helps to point out that DRY and loosely-coupled are often two sides of the same coin.
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