Weekly Digest 5

Engineering

Everything I know about good system design

• System design is how you assemble services.
• Good systems are usually boring(clear and simple) and look like nothing.

Pure and impure software engineering

• Impure engineering is what companies appreciate now.
• Impure engineering can get more leverage from AI.

Repeat Yourself

I would argue that “writing mode” and “refactoring mode” are two different modes of programming. During writing mode, you want to focus on getting the idea down and stop your inner critic, which keeps telling you that your code sucks. During refactoring mode, you take the opposite role: that of the critic. You look for ways to improve the code by finding the right abstractions, removing duplication, and improving readability.

Duplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction – Sandi Metz