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DAVID HEINEMEIER HANSSON: That any better?

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Oh, there we go. Woo.

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Software's hard, as you can see. Hardware,
too.

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So last year I had the personal pleasure of

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celebrating ten years of working with Ruby
and ten

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years of working with Rails. But this year,
I

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have a much more interesting anniversary,
which is ten

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years of sharing Ruby on Rails with all of

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you and everyone who's been using it over
the

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past decade.

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The picture in the background is actually
from almost

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exactly this time, where I gave the very first

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presentation on Ruby on Rails at a Danish
university

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ten years ago.

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Ten years ago, I had to talk a lot

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about what is MVC, for example. Today, not
so

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much. There's a lot of things that over the

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past ten years, things we were worried about
in

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the beginning, sort of leveling up as a community

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and as, as programmers, that just aren't relevant
anymore.

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We're just taking all that stuff for granted.

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Which is awesome. We get to care about a

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lot of other stuff.

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But as I look back over the past ten

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years, which is pretty much the majority of
my

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adult life, I've been working on Ruby on Rails.

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It's fun to look back even further. I think

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there's a common misconception that anybody
who ends up

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creating something like Rails or

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doing something else within

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software development or computer science,

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well, they must have

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been programming since they were five years
old, right.

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The whole notion of a hacker is somebody who,

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who sort of got their first computer twenty
years

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ago and was just programming the entire time.
Well.

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That wasn't me.

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I did not learn to program when I was

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five years old. I didn't learn to program
until

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I was closer to twenty. I'd been interested
in

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computers for a long time, but it wasn't really

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until the late '90s, early 2000 that I dove

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into computer programming as something that
I was going

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to do.

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I had a lot of friends who were doing

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it. I knew a lot of programmers. But somehow

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it, it sort of never, never caught on. Before

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I started writing software that I needed for
myself,

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and before I found sort of a place in

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the software world for that to happen.

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And the reason I, I say that is, is

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I've seen a number of essays of like, what

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is a true hacker, and, and as a true

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hacker, one of the things that keeps being
thrown

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out is those ten years, right. You should
have

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been programming for ten years already,

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otherwise you're way behind.

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Well, I learned to program about three years
before

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I released Ruby on Rails. Turned out fine.

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And I don't say that as, like, it was

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because I grew up on a farm and didn't

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know what a computer was. This is me in,

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in the center there with the stick, and the

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blue shirt in 1985. These are the kids that

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were living in my neighborhood.

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In 1985 I got introduced to my, my first

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computer. And I was about five years old.
And

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I got introduced to computers through gaming.
Sort of,

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we were playing ninjas in the streets around
our

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houses, and then we'd play ninjas on the box.

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And I found it fascinating right from the
get

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go, right. Computers were really

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fascinating and games really

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captured my imagination early on. I remember,
at, at

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that time, there were certain, lots of parents
were

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like, well make sure you get out and play

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a lot. Because you don't want to spend your,

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or wasting your time, that was the, that was

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the word, wasting your time in front of computers

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inside, right.

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Well, I really did want to waste my time

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in front of computers. And this was the computer

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to have in 1985, in our neighborhood. But
we

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couldn't afford a computer like that. There
was only

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one guy in the whole neighborhood that had
a

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computer like that. So we all shared it and

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we all played Yeah, Kung Fu, in turn.

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But then the next year, so, I, I couldn't

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afford this computer, but my dad somehow,
he was

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fixing TVs and stereos, he traded a stereo
with

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this guy for this other weird computer, which
was

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an Abstraught 646.

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And I was really excited. It didn't actually
play

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Yeah, Kung Fu. I was a little disappointed
by

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that, but it had some other crappier games.
Anyway,

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it was a computer. And that was sort of

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my first introduction to, to computers, six
years old.

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And, and I tried to learn programming.

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I, I got a magazine and, at the back

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of these magazines back then, there were programs
you

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could type in. And I was like, wow, this

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is, this is amazing. I can control this computer.

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So I built my first information technology
system.

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It was messages to my mom of where I

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went, where, I had this clever system that
would

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really optimize the fact that writing a message
of

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where I went and, and when I was going

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to be home, it was too complicated. It would

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be much easier if I just wrote a little

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note where I gave her the location on the

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tape that she had to fast forward to, and

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then she could read where I was.

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I thought, man this is so clever. I just

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have to write down two twenty-eight, and then
I

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could preprogram that note, and she'll never
know I

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was over at Peter's house playing Yeah, Kung
Fu.

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That really wasn't programming, right. I just
typed some

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stuff in. I didn't know what the hell I

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was doing. I just somehow figured out print,
OK,

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that puts stuff up on the screen. That was,

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that was the extent of it, right. But it

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was my first stab at programming. And I, and

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I, it kind of failed.

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That was the extent of my programming, that
I

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knew how to fast-forward to a pre-recorded
message.

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Not that great.

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So a couple years later, late 80s, I saw

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this game for the first time. Battle Squadrant.
And

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I remember thinking, holy shit, these graphics
are amazing.

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How can they make this? This looks so good,

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when you were used to a Commodore 64, the

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graphics of the Amiga 500, which is mind blowing,

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right. And once again, I felt this, like,
wow,

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wouldn't it be amazing to be part of that?

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To be able to create something like that?

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I'd love to make games.

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So I sort of started looking around, and,
and

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I found this thing called Amus. I don't know,

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has anybody here ever programmed in Amus?
Not a

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single hand. OK. Must have been a very European

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thing.

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But it was sort of a real programming environment,

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and, and I got the box, and sort of

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my English was a little, not that great, so

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I was sort of just reading through it and

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trying to find the code. And it was all

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about sprites and vectors and ifs and variables,
and

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it, it didn't make any sense to me at

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all.

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So I thought, eh this is a little bit

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too hard. Thankfully, there was something
called Easy Amos,

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right. Oh, wow, that's gonna be great. This
other

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one was too hard. Now I just have to

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do the easy one.

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Unfortunately, in Easy Amos, it was still
programming, and

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it still had conditionals and variables and
all these

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other things I just did not understand. I,
it's

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so funny, because, once you learn something,
it can

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sometimes be hard to go back and think, like,

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how was it before I knew how to do

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this? But I distinctly remember, why would
you have

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a variable?

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Like, if you just assign something once, why
would

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you ever sort of want to change that? Why

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does it have to be a space. Why can't

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it just be the thing. Like, I did not

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get the concept of variables.

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And this is at, I don't know, age ten

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or whatever. So, still not getting programming.
It's still

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not making any sense to me. So I gave

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up on that, too.

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Then, in 1993, I went to something called
the

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Gathering. The Gathering three, which was
a big demo

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party in Denmark, where people from all over
Europe,

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maybe some from the U.S. as well, would gather

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to, to show off their skills of creating these

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demos.

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And demos were basically just, like, little
music videos

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with computer graphics. And I thought that
was really

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awesome. And, again, I got this sensation
of, wow,

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that's amazing. People are creating these
sequences, they look

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really good. This is, this is awesome. I'd
love

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to be a part of that.

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This is '93, so I'm, I'm fourteen. And this

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demo party, and then I met pretty much everybody

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I knew for the next ten years in, in

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computer software, including Allen of TextMate
fame. I was

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fourteen and he was part of one of these

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demo groups, and we got talking, and then
ten

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years later, I'd help him release Textmate,
and this

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is now twenty years ago.

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Anyway.

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I still didn't get the concept, right. Like,
it

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was all, it was Assembler. So it was even

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harder and weirder to figure out than Amos
was.

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It was vectors, it was math, it was, it

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was just really hard. So once again, this
is

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the third time I tried to sort of figure

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out programming, because I want to build stuff.

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And the third time, it failed.

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So I ended up building another information
system. At

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that time, there's something called BBS's.
So pre-internet, you

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dialed up to basically every web site individually
through

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a modem, and I ran one of those things.

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At that time, it was, it was called a

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Where's BBS, which is where we traded all
the

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illegal software that we couldn't afford,
and games, and

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demos.

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And I had a lot of fun doing that.

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I was fifteen and I was, I was working

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at a grocery store, and I spent all my

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money buying modems and phone lines.

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But sort of the long and the short of

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that is that I failed to identify with programming

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under the computer-science paradigm.

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Computer science, in itself, just didn't really
appeal to

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me. Like, it didn't make sense to me. Learning

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programming through sort of the lens, the
prism of,

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of hard science just, it didn't really, it
just

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didn't click. And I was actually pretty disappointed
for

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awhile. I had tried to learn programming three
or

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four times over the past ten years of my,

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my life, and it just, it wasn't clicking.

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No surprise to sort of my teachers. This is

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my high school diploma, part of it, and it

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says math, final exam, F. And, and English,
I

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got an A. But math was just never my

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thing. Physics never, was never my thing.

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Any of the hard sciences were just never my

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thing. And you say, oh, well that explains
a

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lot. That's why Rails is so fucking slow.

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But it, it's true. It just never appealed
to

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me. But, I think it also inoculated me with

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something really early on, which was, it disabused
me

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of the thinking that I was a computer scientist.

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That I was ever going to come up with

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an algorithm. That I was ever going to make

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any ground-breaking discoveries at the low-level
of, of computer

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science.

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And that was actually really a relief. Because
when

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I finally got into programming, I knew that
was

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00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:04,209
just not what I was going to do with

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it. That was never, it wasn't my idol, it

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was not what I was chasing. I wanted to

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build information systems. Like all these
attempts I had

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over the years, they were all about information
systems.

247
00:12:15,029 --> 00:12:18,069
They were about using the computer to build
something

248
00:12:18,069 --> 00:12:20,220
else that really didn't have much to do with

249
00:12:20,220 --> 00:12:24,560
the underlying things. That there were people,
smart people,

250
00:12:24,560 --> 00:12:27,079
who had come up with algorithms underneath
to, to

251
00:12:27,079 --> 00:12:30,699
make it all work, wonderful. I'm not one of

252
00:12:30,699 --> 00:12:31,129
them.

253
00:12:31,129 --> 00:12:33,170
And that's fine.

254
00:12:33,170 --> 00:12:39,060
I think as an industry, very few people have

255
00:12:39,060 --> 00:12:42,389
gotten to that realization. Even if it is,
that

256
00:12:42,389 --> 00:12:45,779
they, on a daily basis, build information
systems. Even

257
00:12:45,779 --> 00:12:48,300
if it is that they're working on yet another

258
00:12:48,300 --> 00:12:52,129
social network for sock puppets, or horror,
in my

259
00:12:52,129 --> 00:12:57,360
case, yet another fucking to-do list. The
aspiration of

260
00:12:57,360 --> 00:12:59,550
the whole industry, everyone in it, is that
we're

261
00:12:59,550 --> 00:13:01,379
all programmers.

262
00:13:01,379 --> 00:13:02,339
Right?

263
00:13:02,339 --> 00:13:09,339
No we're not. I am nothing like Linus, right.

264
00:13:09,670 --> 00:13:12,410
He's actually a real computer scientist. To
figure out

265
00:13:12,410 --> 00:13:14,560
how to, I don't know, fucking improve the
scheduler

266
00:13:14,560 --> 00:13:20,819
in the kernel. Shew. No clue. No interest.
All

267
00:13:20,819 --> 00:13:21,569
good.

268
00:13:21,569 --> 00:13:25,220
I am ever in debt that there are people

269
00:13:25,220 --> 00:13:28,610
like that out there who can do this stuff.

270
00:13:28,610 --> 00:13:30,149
So I don't have to do it. So I

271
00:13:30,149 --> 00:13:33,980
can focus on something else. But I think most

272
00:13:33,980 --> 00:13:36,540
programmers think that, oh yeah, that, that's
what I

273
00:13:36,540 --> 00:13:39,899
do. Yeah, I work information systems, but,
we're kind

274
00:13:39,899 --> 00:13:42,290
of colleagues, right? Me and Linus here.

275
00:13:42,290 --> 00:13:45,720
I'm pretty sure that he would tell you, fuck

276
00:13:45,720 --> 00:13:49,480
you. We're nothing alike. We are not colleagues.
What

277
00:13:49,480 --> 00:13:52,620
you do is making another fucking to do list.

278
00:13:52,620 --> 00:13:57,410
I'm improving the fucking kernel of Linux.
Far more

279
00:13:57,410 --> 00:14:00,620
important work. He would disabuse you of your
delusions

280
00:14:00,620 --> 00:14:06,600
of grandeur real quick.

281
00:14:06,600 --> 00:14:08,360
And I think that's a real shame. I think

282
00:14:08,360 --> 00:14:12,350
it's a real shame that if you sort of

283
00:14:12,350 --> 00:14:15,970
pick your heroes in such a impossible fashion,
that

284
00:14:15,970 --> 00:14:17,850
they're actually nothing like you and you
will be

285
00:14:17,850 --> 00:14:20,050
nothing like them, you're gonna set yourself
up for

286
00:14:20,050 --> 00:14:22,189
a bad time for the whole ride.

287
00:14:22,189 --> 00:14:27,389
The truth of the matter is that most information

288
00:14:27,389 --> 00:14:31,550
system development has very little to do with
science.

289
00:14:31,550 --> 00:14:35,439
Yes, it's all built on top of computer science.

290
00:14:35,439 --> 00:14:38,329
Yes, computer science is what makes it possible
for

291
00:14:38,329 --> 00:14:40,730
us to do what it is that we do.

292
00:14:40,730 --> 00:14:44,610
But it doesn't define what we do.

293
00:14:44,610 --> 00:14:46,699
And I think in many ways that prism of

294
00:14:46,699 --> 00:14:50,850
computer science is harmful to the development
of information

295
00:14:50,850 --> 00:14:55,000
systems. It's actually not a good view on
the

296
00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:59,089
world to have. Just because you can make,
you're

297
00:14:59,089 --> 00:15:00,610
Steingraeber and Sohne, and you can make the
best

298
00:15:00,610 --> 00:15:02,610
piano in the world, that doesn't make you
a

299
00:15:02,610 --> 00:15:05,579
great pianist. It doesn't mean you can play
wonderful

300
00:15:05,579 --> 00:15:08,529
tunes. Just because you can create the foundations
of

301
00:15:08,529 --> 00:15:12,480
which other people can build upon, just because
you're

302
00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:15,800
a great computer scientist, doesn't mean you're
a great

303
00:15:15,800 --> 00:15:18,360
software writer.

304
00:15:18,360 --> 00:15:22,300
Doesn't mean you're a great programmer of
information systems.

305
00:15:22,300 --> 00:15:25,519
And most of all, if you are committed to

306
00:15:25,519 --> 00:15:28,129
building information systems, and I am wholly
committed to

307
00:15:28,129 --> 00:15:30,910
building information systems, I've given up
the notion, long

308
00:15:30,910 --> 00:15:33,399
ago, that I was going to get into games

309
00:15:33,399 --> 00:15:37,149
programming or vector programming or anything
else that sounds

310
00:15:37,149 --> 00:15:41,139
like hard science and is hard.

311
00:15:41,139 --> 00:15:42,639
I think you're gonna be much better off. But

312
00:15:42,639 --> 00:15:45,389
I think it's also really tough, because I
think

313
00:15:45,389 --> 00:15:49,160
most of the paths, the celebrated paths into
programming

314
00:15:49,160 --> 00:15:53,009
go through courses called computer science.
So you're sort

315
00:15:53,009 --> 00:15:56,079
of taught right from the get go that computer

316
00:15:56,079 --> 00:16:00,189
science, like that is the ultimate ideal,
and what

317
00:16:00,189 --> 00:16:02,379
you're doing here is just sort of piddling
along

318
00:16:02,379 --> 00:16:05,300
until you can get to this top of the

319
00:16:05,300 --> 00:16:06,620
mountain.

320
00:16:06,620 --> 00:16:08,360
Even worse, if you actually have a degree
in

321
00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:13,749
computer science, right, and now you're slumming
it, with

322
00:16:13,749 --> 00:16:16,439
yet another social network, or, yet another
fucking to-do

323
00:16:16,439 --> 00:16:19,649
list. I mean, that's a recipe for self-loathing
if

324
00:16:19,649 --> 00:16:21,749
I ever knew one.

325
00:16:21,749 --> 00:16:24,589
But, as I say, this is mostly about the

326
00:16:24,589 --> 00:16:27,240
prism of how you're looking at programming,
what is

327
00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:30,480
programming, what is writing software. What
is that we

328
00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:34,610
do every day when we create information systems?

329
00:16:34,610 --> 00:16:36,519
And if you look at it from this prism

330
00:16:36,519 --> 00:16:41,459
of the hard sciences, you think, well, Law
of

331
00:16:41,459 --> 00:16:45,310
Thermodynamics. Physics. This is, this is
the real serious

332
00:16:45,310 --> 00:16:48,800
hard stuff, right. You will laugh at French
poetry.

333
00:16:48,800 --> 00:16:51,899
Ha, ha, ha, ha! They're all just, what, analyzing

334
00:16:51,899 --> 00:16:54,889
what some schmuck in the 1700s did, and there's

335
00:16:54,889 --> 00:16:58,249
a thousand different interpretations of, of
what that person

336
00:16:58,249 --> 00:17:00,819
actually wrote and what does that actually
mean? Like,

337
00:17:00,819 --> 00:17:04,490
that's pathetic, right. You can't arrive at
any ultimate,

338
00:17:04,490 --> 00:17:06,430
clear, universal truths.

339
00:17:06,430 --> 00:17:11,339
Math! There's a truth. There's a final result.
Physics.

340
00:17:11,339 --> 00:17:14,119
There's a truth. We're knowing more about
the natural

341
00:17:14,119 --> 00:17:18,500
world in a way where we can be completely

342
00:17:18,500 --> 00:17:22,900
confident. Mostly. In what we know. Certainly
in math,

343
00:17:22,900 --> 00:17:23,380
right.

344
00:17:23,380 --> 00:17:28,539
If you carry that over into programming, you
end

345
00:17:28,539 --> 00:17:35,100
up with shit like this. Law of Demeter. Practices

346
00:17:35,100 --> 00:17:40,860
and principles who sort of project that they're
universal

347
00:17:40,860 --> 00:17:44,590
truths about the natural world, that this
is how

348
00:17:44,590 --> 00:17:47,159
good programs are made, and this is not really

349
00:17:47,159 --> 00:17:50,320
an argument. The only argument is whether
you're professional

350
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:53,370
and following the laws, or you're an amateur
and

351
00:17:53,370 --> 00:17:58,070
you're breaking them.

352
00:17:58,070 --> 00:17:59,990
When I look at computer programming, and when
I

353
00:17:59,990 --> 00:18:04,000
reach most, read most programs, I'm not reading
hard

354
00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:07,470
sciences. It is much more like studying 17th
century

355
00:18:07,470 --> 00:18:10,020
French poetry. What the fuck did this guy
mean?

356
00:18:10,020 --> 00:18:13,210
Like, I can't follow this at all. Like, is

357
00:18:13,210 --> 00:18:16,909
this some weird reference to some play somewhere?
What's

358
00:18:16,909 --> 00:18:18,090
going on here?

359
00:18:18,090 --> 00:18:20,950
It's actually more like forensics. It's more
like analysis.

360
00:18:20,950 --> 00:18:24,010
It's much more subjective. Like, what is actually
going

361
00:18:24,010 --> 00:18:27,650
on? What were they trying to communicate?
What's just

362
00:18:27,650 --> 00:18:29,840
going on here, right?

363
00:18:29,840 --> 00:18:32,860
So, I find it so funny that, that programmers

364
00:18:32,860 --> 00:18:37,380
who work in programming, and they laugh at
all

365
00:18:37,380 --> 00:18:40,960
these subjective fields of endeavor, when
that is what

366
00:18:40,960 --> 00:18:44,570
they do every day. They just, no, what I'm

367
00:18:44,570 --> 00:18:48,580
doing is computer science. This is empirical
truth, blah,

368
00:18:48,580 --> 00:18:52,110
blah, blah, we have laws, blah, blah, blah.

369
00:18:52,110 --> 00:18:54,190
I think the, the bottom line is that is

370
00:18:54,190 --> 00:18:55,799
when you go in with that notion, when you

371
00:18:55,799 --> 00:18:57,549
go in with the notion that we can actually

372
00:18:57,549 --> 00:19:02,120
discover laws of programming, like, Law of
Demeter, of

373
00:19:02,120 --> 00:19:04,620
how we should be creating our programs, you
lull

374
00:19:04,620 --> 00:19:10,200
yourself into this belief that there are some
practices

375
00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:13,200
that are just true. They're not up for debate.

376
00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:15,210
They're not up for discussion.

377
00:19:15,210 --> 00:19:19,890
They're science. That what we do is science.
Well,

378
00:19:19,890 --> 00:19:22,230
I think there's another word for, sort of,
those

379
00:19:22,230 --> 00:19:29,230
delusions. Pseudoscience. When people think
they're doing science and

380
00:19:30,159 --> 00:19:34,460
they're not actually doing science. That's
pseudoscience. I think

381
00:19:34,460 --> 00:19:38,380
a lot of what's going on in software, methodology,

382
00:19:38,380 --> 00:19:41,610
practices, is pseudoscience.

383
00:19:41,610 --> 00:19:43,640
Which would be fine if people would accept
that

384
00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:46,190
and say, yes, what I'm doing is pseudo science.

385
00:19:46,190 --> 00:19:48,520
Like, I'm not finding any grand truths here,
but

386
00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:51,690
they're not, right. They're ex-pouting that
this is, this

387
00:19:51,690 --> 00:19:52,640
is the truth.

388
00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:59,640
Well, here's another pseudoscience. Diet schemes.
I think diets

389
00:20:00,270 --> 00:20:06,429
are actually incredibly similar to most software
methodology approaches.

390
00:20:06,429 --> 00:20:10,900
They all sort of espouse that I have the

391
00:20:10,900 --> 00:20:13,610
truth, what you need to get slim and healthy

392
00:20:13,610 --> 00:20:17,210
is the ten-day green smoothie cleanse.

393
00:20:17,210 --> 00:20:18,539
That is the truth. That's how you get it,

394
00:20:18,539 --> 00:20:22,210
right. And then you, shit, that, that's, OK,
smoothies.

395
00:20:22,210 --> 00:20:25,340
Sounds good. But what about this super shred
diet?

396
00:20:25,340 --> 00:20:28,260
Like, I lose twenty pounds in four weeks?
That's

397
00:20:28,260 --> 00:20:30,640
certainly better than ten pounds in, I don't
know,

398
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:33,279
ten weeks, or whatever that hungry diet girl
is

399
00:20:33,279 --> 00:20:35,820
promising. I'll go with that super shred guy,
like

400
00:20:35,820 --> 00:20:37,970
he's got to have the truth, right.

401
00:20:37,970 --> 00:20:40,620
And it's so funny, if you read any diet

402
00:20:40,620 --> 00:20:42,289
books, and diet books are incredibly popular.
If you

403
00:20:42,289 --> 00:20:44,270
look at the most popular book on Amazon, the

404
00:20:44,270 --> 00:20:46,270
top one hundred list, a lot of them are

405
00:20:46,270 --> 00:20:50,529
diet books. People want to be told how they

406
00:20:50,529 --> 00:20:53,899
can cheat the basics. I think software development
is

407
00:20:53,899 --> 00:20:55,529
exactly like that.

408
00:20:55,529 --> 00:20:58,779
I think software developers are exactly like
people trying

409
00:20:58,779 --> 00:21:03,870
to lose ten pounds and thinking, you know
what,

410
00:21:03,870 --> 00:21:07,210
all this exercising, just eating healthier,
that's a little

411
00:21:07,210 --> 00:21:09,330
too hard. Let's, let's listen to this super
shred

412
00:21:09,330 --> 00:21:09,960
guy.

413
00:21:09,960 --> 00:21:11,600
He's got to have the answer. An answer that's

414
00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:16,649
less painful, less simple and basic. There's
got to

415
00:21:16,649 --> 00:21:19,370
be some grand secret I just don't know yet.

416
00:21:19,370 --> 00:21:21,909
If I can just learn the secret then everything's

417
00:21:21,909 --> 00:21:25,159
gonna be great, right. But it's pseudoscience.
Those diets

418
00:21:25,159 --> 00:21:31,260
are based on anecdotes. They're based on one
guy

419
00:21:31,260 --> 00:21:33,360
trying something, or, or looking at a few
people,

420
00:21:33,360 --> 00:21:37,980
a tiny sample size, it's just pure, poor,
pure

421
00:21:37,980 --> 00:21:39,860
poor science.

422
00:21:39,860 --> 00:21:44,049
External variables, uncontrolled experiments
that run for too long.

423
00:21:44,049 --> 00:21:46,480
You can't derive any absolute truths from
it. But

424
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:51,860
people keep arriving at absolute truths.

425
00:21:51,860 --> 00:21:55,909
And just like feeling a little overweight,
and most

426
00:21:55,909 --> 00:21:58,070
people do at some point in their life. Everybody

427
00:21:58,070 --> 00:22:00,179
wants to lose whatever it is. They want to

428
00:22:00,179 --> 00:22:02,080
feel healthier even if they are at the correct

429
00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:04,549
weight. They want to be in better shape. All

430
00:22:04,549 --> 00:22:07,230
our code bases are exactly like that.

431
00:22:07,230 --> 00:22:09,090
Everyone has like, oh I'd love that this part

432
00:22:09,090 --> 00:22:11,230
of the code base, it's not that clean, right.

433
00:22:11,230 --> 00:22:13,779
So we have that same feeling of being a

434
00:22:13,779 --> 00:22:19,220
little insecure about our quote code quality,
just like

435
00:22:19,220 --> 00:22:21,510
most people are a little insecure, at least
at

436
00:22:21,510 --> 00:22:25,279
certain times in their life, about their body,
right.

437
00:22:25,279 --> 00:22:27,789
So we're ripe for somebody to come in and

438
00:22:27,789 --> 00:22:32,260
tell us what's wrong. To fix it for us

439
00:22:32,260 --> 00:22:34,100
by just saying, oh, no, no, no, you don't

440
00:22:34,100 --> 00:22:35,960
have to do any of the hard stuff. Writing

441
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:37,320
good code, do you know what that's about?
It's

442
00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:40,970
about this one practice. This one secret that
they

443
00:22:40,970 --> 00:22:42,750
don't want you to know.

444
00:22:42,750 --> 00:22:45,880
If I teach you that, then all your code

445
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:48,679
is going to be wonderful. But right now, you're

446
00:22:48,679 --> 00:22:52,360
not a professional. You're an amateur. You're
writing dirty

447
00:22:52,360 --> 00:22:56,429
code. You should feel really bad about that.
You

448
00:22:56,429 --> 00:22:58,039
have sinned.

449
00:22:58,039 --> 00:23:02,149
But, I will give you absolution. I have the

450
00:23:02,149 --> 00:23:06,059
pathway to clean code.

451
00:23:06,059 --> 00:23:10,850
And it hits a lot of people right in

452
00:23:10,850 --> 00:23:14,830
the impostor plexus. Like, ugh, you're saying
my code

453
00:23:14,830 --> 00:23:17,020
is dirty? Yeah, I guess it is a little

454
00:23:17,020 --> 00:23:19,710
dirty. There's this one part that's, like,
shit, maybe

455
00:23:19,710 --> 00:23:22,789
I'm not really a computer scientist. Maybe
it doesn't

456
00:23:22,789 --> 00:23:26,690
really, I don't really belong here amongst
the programmers.

457
00:23:26,690 --> 00:23:28,710
Can you please tell me, how do I get

458
00:23:28,710 --> 00:23:32,270
to be a computer scientist?

459
00:23:32,270 --> 00:23:36,600
How can I get to belong amongst the esteemed

460
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:41,059
professional programmers? Can you tell me
how? And there

461
00:23:41,059 --> 00:23:44,090
are lots of people willing to tell you how.

462
00:23:44,090 --> 00:23:46,679
That the salvation will come through these
patterns and

463
00:23:46,679 --> 00:23:49,159
practices, and as long as you follow these
ten

464
00:23:49,159 --> 00:23:54,659
commandments of good code, all shall be well.

465
00:23:54,659 --> 00:23:56,990
OK.

466
00:23:56,990 --> 00:24:00,450
I think the most popular commandment, I'm
gonna spend

467
00:24:00,450 --> 00:24:02,950
some time on that, the most popular practice,
the

468
00:24:02,950 --> 00:24:06,570
most popular pattern for making people feel
shitty about

469
00:24:06,570 --> 00:24:09,049
their code and shitty about themselves and
shitty about

470
00:24:09,049 --> 00:24:16,049
their path through programming, is TDD.

471
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:23,370
TDD is the most successful software diet of
all

472
00:24:23,370 --> 00:24:30,370
times. It's so alluring, it has such an appeal

473
00:24:31,380 --> 00:24:34,679
in its basic principles, that everyone gets
wrapped up

474
00:24:34,679 --> 00:24:37,100
in it. I got wrapped up in it for

475
00:24:37,100 --> 00:24:41,860
quite awhile. I got wrapped up in the storytelling

476
00:24:41,860 --> 00:24:47,149
that all software before TDD was shit and
unprofessional.

477
00:24:47,149 --> 00:24:49,039
And that the only way to arrive at clean

478
00:24:49,039 --> 00:24:54,269
code was to follow the principles of TDD.

479
00:24:54,269 --> 00:24:57,190
And the principles of TDD, mind you, are not

480
00:24:57,190 --> 00:25:02,130
about the tests. It's about test first. It's
about

481
00:25:02,130 --> 00:25:07,370
test-driven design, right. That we have tests
afterwards, that's

482
00:25:07,370 --> 00:25:12,760
just an accidental side-effect. A benefit,
if you will,

483
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:15,179
after the fact. And it's the perfect diet.

484
00:25:15,179 --> 00:25:20,080
I tried multiple times, which is usually how
it

485
00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:22,269
goes with diets, we try one and it doesn't

486
00:25:22,269 --> 00:25:25,110
really work and we fall off the wagon and

487
00:25:25,110 --> 00:25:26,610
then a few months later you try again and

488
00:25:26,610 --> 00:25:28,190
you feel bad about it the whole time and

489
00:25:28,190 --> 00:25:29,419
that's how I felt about TDD for a long

490
00:25:29,419 --> 00:25:29,740
time.

491
00:25:29,740 --> 00:25:32,169
I felt like TDD was what I was supposed

492
00:25:32,169 --> 00:25:34,809
to do. I was supposed to write all my

493
00:25:34,809 --> 00:25:37,669
tests first, and then I would be allowed to

494
00:25:37,669 --> 00:25:42,279
write my code. And it just didn't work. I

495
00:25:42,279 --> 00:25:45,059
kept just feeling like, this is not, I'm not

496
00:25:45,059 --> 00:25:48,340
arriving at something better here. When I'm
driving my

497
00:25:48,340 --> 00:25:51,510
design by writing my tests first, the code
I

498
00:25:51,510 --> 00:25:55,809
look at afterwards, it's not better. It's
not cleaner.

499
00:25:55,809 --> 00:26:00,500
The dirty code I wrote without being test-driven
first,

500
00:26:00,500 --> 00:26:02,390
it actually looks better.

501
00:26:02,390 --> 00:26:06,519
But, so successful has TDD been, that for
the

502
00:26:06,519 --> 00:26:09,919
longest time, until actually fairly recently,
I just thought,

503
00:26:09,919 --> 00:26:12,070
well, I'm the wrong-doer. I'm the one doing
it

504
00:26:12,070 --> 00:26:16,399
wrong. TDD is not at fault, right. Just because

505
00:26:16,399 --> 00:26:19,190
everybody's doing TDD wrong, doesn't mean
that there's anything

506
00:26:19,190 --> 00:26:21,710
wrong with TDD. There's just something wrong
with all

507
00:26:21,710 --> 00:26:23,890
of you. That's the problem.

508
00:26:23,890 --> 00:26:26,399
If you would just be more faithful to the

509
00:26:26,399 --> 00:26:28,730
practices, then everything would be great.

510
00:26:28,730 --> 00:26:31,100
And that's what makes it such a great diet.

511
00:26:31,100 --> 00:26:33,500
That it keeps people in the perpetual state
of

512
00:26:33,500 --> 00:26:37,659
feeling inadequate. So, you keep having to
buy more

513
00:26:37,659 --> 00:26:42,519
books, and attend more conference talks, and
attend more

514
00:26:42,519 --> 00:26:44,940
workshops, and hire more consultants, to teach
you to

515
00:26:44,940 --> 00:26:50,909
be truer to the religion of TDD. Hogwash.

516
00:26:50,909 --> 00:26:54,380
Let's look at some code. So here's a very

517
00:26:54,380 --> 00:26:58,570
simple piece of code. Person has an age method,

518
00:26:58,570 --> 00:27:01,570
that calculates how old somebody is. And we
have

519
00:27:01,570 --> 00:27:04,880
a test for it. This piece of code depends

520
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:06,220
on the world.

521
00:27:06,220 --> 00:27:11,110
It directly refers to date today. It's a explicit

522
00:27:11,110 --> 00:27:13,649
dependency. You cannot change it in there.
Well, in

523
00:27:13,649 --> 00:27:15,750
a lot of languages, that's a problem. Like,
how

524
00:27:15,750 --> 00:27:17,679
are you actually going to test this if you

525
00:27:17,679 --> 00:27:19,419
can't somehow figure out how to change the
date

526
00:27:19,419 --> 00:27:21,470
of today. Like, every time you run your test

527
00:27:21,470 --> 00:27:23,490
it might be a different day and it might

528
00:27:23,490 --> 00:27:24,279
be broken.

529
00:27:24,279 --> 00:27:27,019
Well, in Ruby it's really easy. We just stop

530
00:27:27,019 --> 00:27:29,059
that constant and make it work. That's what
the

531
00:27:29,059 --> 00:27:32,000
travel-to method is about, right.

532
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,299
Proponents of TDD will look at that code and

533
00:27:34,299 --> 00:27:41,299
say, dirty, dirty code. Explicit dependencies
hidden inside. You're

534
00:27:41,360 --> 00:27:44,980
mocking a global object? What the fuck?

535
00:27:44,980 --> 00:27:48,360
You need to shape up. Here's the shaped up

536
00:27:48,360 --> 00:27:52,029
version. We inject our dependency, so we have
a

537
00:27:52,029 --> 00:27:55,490
default of date.today, but we can put in our

538
00:27:55,490 --> 00:27:57,600
own, in the test, we can put in our

539
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,870
own date, right. This is much cleaner. Right.
No.

540
00:28:00,870 --> 00:28:03,779
Great. We improved our code base.

541
00:28:03,779 --> 00:28:07,610
Did we? Is this a better code base? Is

542
00:28:07,610 --> 00:28:10,720
this method better than what we just had there?

543
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,720
Is it simpler? Is it clearer? No. It's easier

544
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:18,029
to test. And that's the important point, right.
That's

545
00:28:18,029 --> 00:28:19,549
the important point in all of these debates,
is

546
00:28:19,549 --> 00:28:21,519
just, is it easier to test?

547
00:28:21,519 --> 00:28:23,559
That's the measure of success. I think that's
a

548
00:28:23,559 --> 00:28:26,419
shitty measure of success. I think there are
much

549
00:28:26,419 --> 00:28:29,769
higher ideals than just whether something
is easy to

550
00:28:29,769 --> 00:28:34,169
test. But it gets worse.

551
00:28:34,169 --> 00:28:36,159
Here's another example. If you actually have
a method

552
00:28:36,159 --> 00:28:39,169
that depends on another method, we have to
inject

553
00:28:39,169 --> 00:28:41,500
the dependency all the way down, now you're
really

554
00:28:41,500 --> 00:28:43,510
muddying things up and now the code is really

555
00:28:43,510 --> 00:28:45,929
starting to get nasty. And this is such a

556
00:28:45,929 --> 00:28:49,200
simple example. I've actually posted this
example online before

557
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,809
and had arguments with TDD proponents about
that.

558
00:28:51,809 --> 00:28:53,380
And, yes, this is, I'm like, well, what does

559
00:28:53,380 --> 00:28:57,029
it matter? You're just injecting one dependency,
what does

560
00:28:57,029 --> 00:28:58,740
it matter? It's not that big of a deal,

561
00:28:58,740 --> 00:29:00,090
right? Yes it is.

562
00:29:00,090 --> 00:29:02,820
Because this is exactly the type of thinking
that

563
00:29:02,820 --> 00:29:05,899
leads you down a really nasty path. Let's
look

564
00:29:05,899 --> 00:29:07,019
at another example.

565
00:29:07,019 --> 00:29:11,929
Here's a standard Rails controller. It has
reliance on

566
00:29:11,929 --> 00:29:14,429
the world. It relies on a before action that

567
00:29:14,429 --> 00:29:19,389
ensures permissions. It sets up a new object
and

568
00:29:19,389 --> 00:29:21,630
sends out an email and then it responds to

569
00:29:21,630 --> 00:29:24,330
something, right. The whole purpose of the
controller in

570
00:29:24,330 --> 00:29:27,470
Rails is to sort of direct the world. It's

571
00:29:27,470 --> 00:29:28,880
to interact with the world.

572
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,730
But how do you unit test that, right? That's

573
00:29:31,730 --> 00:29:34,159
really hard. It's relying on the entire world.
If

574
00:29:34,159 --> 00:29:37,500
we're following this scientific approach of
unit testing where

575
00:29:37,500 --> 00:29:40,480
we're isolating all the variables, holding
everything else constant

576
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:43,269
except for these two things, what goes in,
what

577
00:29:43,269 --> 00:29:49,740
goes out. This is bad, right.

578
00:29:49,740 --> 00:29:53,519
If we instead put in something like a person

579
00:29:53,519 --> 00:29:56,269
creation command and hide away all the actual
doing

580
00:29:56,269 --> 00:29:58,149
of the control and then we inject all the

581
00:29:58,149 --> 00:30:00,990
stuff that it depends on we can test person

582
00:30:00,990 --> 00:30:04,190
creation command really well.

583
00:30:04,190 --> 00:30:07,470
Is that code better? Is that code simpler?
Is

584
00:30:07,470 --> 00:30:09,510
it clearer? Would you rather look at this
and

585
00:30:09,510 --> 00:30:11,080
then understand what the system does or would
you

586
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:13,299
rather look at this and try to figure out

587
00:30:13,299 --> 00:30:16,149
where does this thing go?

588
00:30:16,149 --> 00:30:21,639
And that's the consequence of this chase of
test-first.

589
00:30:21,639 --> 00:30:23,960
It leads you down a path where the gospel

590
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,139
of test-driven design is that anything that's
easier to

591
00:30:28,139 --> 00:30:32,549
test is better. That's it. That's the measure
of

592
00:30:32,549 --> 00:30:35,590
quality. If you can test it easily it's better.

593
00:30:35,590 --> 00:30:39,059
If you can't test it easily, it's worse.

594
00:30:39,059 --> 00:30:43,010
Boo. Exactly right. Boo.

595
00:30:43,010 --> 00:30:45,830
It's not better. We're losing sight of what
we're

596
00:30:45,830 --> 00:30:48,659
actually trying to do. Tests were supposed
to support

597
00:30:48,659 --> 00:30:53,950
us. They weren't supposed to be the main thing.

598
00:30:53,950 --> 00:30:55,289
And I think this is leading to a lot

599
00:30:55,289 --> 00:31:00,889
of Zombie astronautic architectures. Things
that I thought we

600
00:31:00,889 --> 00:31:04,480
moved past long ago. If you look at, at

601
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:07,980
this person create command, that reminds me
very much

602
00:31:07,980 --> 00:31:11,010
about Struts 1 point 2, and how they had

603
00:31:11,010 --> 00:31:12,880
every action as their own object. And that
it

604
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:15,169
was great because it was easy to test, and

605
00:31:15,169 --> 00:31:16,169
it was shit when you were trying to put

606
00:31:16,169 --> 00:31:19,179
a whole architecture together, because you
had all these

607
00:31:19,179 --> 00:31:20,409
create commands and all of the sudden you
had

608
00:31:20,409 --> 00:31:22,250
a million objects. Yes, they were easier to
test,

609
00:31:22,250 --> 00:31:26,340
but the system was much harder to reason about.

610
00:31:26,340 --> 00:31:28,669
You see the same thing around ActiveRecord,
for example.

611
00:31:28,669 --> 00:31:32,200
You see, well ActiveRecord should just be
data access

612
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:34,080
objects. They shouldn't actually have any
logic. They should

613
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:36,139
just be about interfacing with the database,
because then

614
00:31:36,139 --> 00:31:38,340
we can split out everything else. Our domain
logic,

615
00:31:38,340 --> 00:31:40,720
it's just that it doesn't have to touch the

616
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,009
database, so that our tests can be simple,
so

617
00:31:43,009 --> 00:31:46,070
that our tests can be fast, right?

618
00:31:46,070 --> 00:31:52,919
Again. Order of priority. Test, test fast,
oh, your

619
00:31:52,919 --> 00:31:58,519
architecture. That'll just fall from that,
right?

620
00:31:58,519 --> 00:32:02,880
I recently read James Coplien, has a great
paper

621
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:06,220
out called "Why Most Unit Testing is Waste."
And

622
00:32:06,220 --> 00:32:09,809
for me, this is the money quote. Splitting
up

623
00:32:09,809 --> 00:32:13,639
functions to support the testing process,
destroys your system

624
00:32:13,639 --> 00:32:17,809
architecture and code comprehension along
with it. Test at

625
00:32:17,809 --> 00:32:22,330
a coarser level of granularity.

626
00:32:22,330 --> 00:32:28,740
TDD is focused on the unit. The unit is

627
00:32:28,740 --> 00:32:31,440
the sacred piece, because that's the science
piece. That's

628
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:33,419
what we can control all of the variables.
We're

629
00:32:33,419 --> 00:32:35,950
just looking at these few pieces, right.

630
00:32:35,950 --> 00:32:39,230
What James is saying, maybe that's not the
right

631
00:32:39,230 --> 00:32:44,009
level. Maybe testing, the role it should have,
shouldn't

632
00:32:44,009 --> 00:32:47,779
be about the unit most of the time. And,

633
00:32:47,779 --> 00:32:50,019
I sort of alluded to this awhile back, I

634
00:32:50,019 --> 00:32:54,220
wrote a post called Testing Like the TSA,
and

635
00:32:54,220 --> 00:32:56,470
the main thing about that was about over-testing
and

636
00:32:56,470 --> 00:32:58,480
sort of this testing theater that goes on.
But

637
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:02,360
I hadn't really made the switch that it, the

638
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:03,980
problem is that we're trying to test at the

639
00:33:03,980 --> 00:33:05,059
wrong level.

640
00:33:05,059 --> 00:33:07,110
It's not testing itself. Testing is great.
I'm not

641
00:33:07,110 --> 00:33:10,399
advocating that we shouldn't have tests. I'm
advocating that

642
00:33:10,399 --> 00:33:14,080
driving your design from unit tests is actually
not

643
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:17,559
a good idea. That you actually end up destroying

644
00:33:17,559 --> 00:33:20,039
your system architecture and your code comprehension
along with

645
00:33:20,039 --> 00:33:21,559
it.

646
00:33:21,559 --> 00:33:26,019
So if unit tests aren't the thing, what could

647
00:33:26,019 --> 00:33:26,850
we do instead?

648
00:33:26,850 --> 00:33:29,620
Well, I think there are higher levels of testing.

649
00:33:29,620 --> 00:33:31,269
We've already sort of moved to that in Rails.

650
00:33:31,269 --> 00:33:33,659
It's no longer called test unit, where you
place

651
00:33:33,659 --> 00:33:37,090
your tests, it's called test models. That's
already one

652
00:33:37,090 --> 00:33:40,399
step up. That sort of frees you from feeling

653
00:33:40,399 --> 00:33:42,570
bad about the fact that your, your model tests

654
00:33:42,570 --> 00:33:44,970
actually touch the database. That's not a
bad thing.

655
00:33:44,970 --> 00:33:46,950
Yes. They run slower. But they also test more

656
00:33:46,950 --> 00:33:47,690
things.

657
00:33:47,690 --> 00:33:49,179
You can make anything fast if it doesn't have

658
00:33:49,179 --> 00:33:52,009
to work.

659
00:33:52,009 --> 00:33:53,880
And I think that's the problem with testing
in

660
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:55,139
a lot of cases. We recently had a really

661
00:33:55,139 --> 00:33:57,330
bad bug on base kim where we actually lost

662
00:33:57,330 --> 00:34:01,009
some data for real customers. And it was incredibly

663
00:34:01,009 --> 00:34:05,779
well-tested at the unit level. And all the
tests

664
00:34:05,779 --> 00:34:08,179
passed. And still we lost data. How the fuck

665
00:34:08,179 --> 00:34:09,918
did that happen?

666
00:34:09,918 --> 00:34:11,750
It happened because we were so focused on
driving

667
00:34:11,750 --> 00:34:14,190
our design from the unit test level, we didn't

668
00:34:14,190 --> 00:34:17,050
have any system tests for that particular
thing. And

669
00:34:17,050 --> 00:34:18,580
it was a really simple thing. It was like,

670
00:34:18,580 --> 00:34:21,110
if you were editing an object and you were

671
00:34:21,110 --> 00:34:22,520
editing the attachments, you could lose an
attachment. And

672
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:25,560
we lost some attachments and it was a terrible

673
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:26,679
thing.

674
00:34:26,679 --> 00:34:29,949
And after that, sort of thought, wait a minute.

675
00:34:29,949 --> 00:34:33,210
All these unit tests are just focusing on
these

676
00:34:33,210 --> 00:34:36,139
core objects in the system. These individual
unit pieces.

677
00:34:36,139 --> 00:34:38,179
It doesn't say anything about whether the
whole system

678
00:34:38,179 --> 00:34:38,829
works.

679
00:34:38,829 --> 00:34:42,899
Most TDD proponents, I find, are much more
focused

680
00:34:42,899 --> 00:34:45,159
on the unit level, because that's where they're
driving

681
00:34:45,159 --> 00:34:47,219
their design. And they're not very much focused
on

682
00:34:47,219 --> 00:34:49,149
the system level at all, which is what people

683
00:34:49,149 --> 00:34:50,190
actually give a shit about.

684
00:34:50,190 --> 00:34:52,649
Does the system work? I don't care about whether

685
00:34:52,649 --> 00:34:55,750
your units work. Does the whole thing work?
That's

686
00:34:55,750 --> 00:34:57,760
what matters.

687
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:00,450
So that kind of freed my mind up a

688
00:35:00,450 --> 00:35:03,230
little bit. That if we give up this need

689
00:35:03,230 --> 00:35:05,240
for hard science experience, where we have
to control

690
00:35:05,240 --> 00:35:07,140
all the variables and boil everything down
to a

691
00:35:07,140 --> 00:35:09,220
single unit that can be tested, we can float

692
00:35:09,220 --> 00:35:11,900
freely with the world.

693
00:35:11,900 --> 00:35:13,530
Awesome.

694
00:35:13,530 --> 00:35:18,140
This realization, I came to realize, was why
people

695
00:35:18,140 --> 00:35:22,740
hate fixtures. So fixtures in, in Rails is
about

696
00:35:22,740 --> 00:35:27,390
spinning up a world, it's about setting up,
sort

697
00:35:27,390 --> 00:35:33,540
of, small size version of the whole world.
Where

698
00:35:33,540 --> 00:35:36,780
most approaches, they focus on just one unit.

699
00:35:36,780 --> 00:35:38,660
I don't want to have an account in here

700
00:35:38,660 --> 00:35:40,300
and a project in here if I'm just testing

701
00:35:40,300 --> 00:35:42,560
my message. I just want to test this one

702
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:44,970
single thing, right. And if you're doing that,
yeah,

703
00:35:44,970 --> 00:35:46,510
fixtures are probably not a good thing. It
doesn't

704
00:35:46,510 --> 00:35:47,670
really work for that.

705
00:35:47,670 --> 00:35:50,730
It works really well when you're not concerned
about

706
00:35:50,730 --> 00:35:53,700
the hard science focus on unit tests. It works

707
00:35:53,700 --> 00:35:57,300
really well when you're focused on a larger
level.

708
00:35:57,300 --> 00:35:58,810
When you're focused on models, when you're
focused on

709
00:35:58,810 --> 00:36:03,319
controllers, and most importantly when you're
focused on systems.

710
00:36:03,319 --> 00:36:09,410
But all that is sort of usually swept away

711
00:36:09,410 --> 00:36:14,970
by the holy trinity of test metrics. Coverage,
ratio,

712
00:36:14,970 --> 00:36:17,230
and speed.

713
00:36:17,230 --> 00:36:23,920
I've been in a lot of internet arguments lately.

714
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:28,250
In such esteemed establishments as Hacker
News, and, and

715
00:36:28,250 --> 00:36:31,970
elsewhere, and I find it really interesting,
because each

716
00:36:31,970 --> 00:36:35,410
individual argument will make me rage, but
then the

717
00:36:35,410 --> 00:36:38,400
larger set of all arguments, like a meta study,

718
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:41,060
actually reveals really interesting things
about what people care

719
00:36:41,060 --> 00:36:42,400
about. What they value.

720
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:44,849
And what I find is, in most discussions about

721
00:36:44,849 --> 00:36:48,210
design, especially around Rails, what people
care about these

722
00:36:48,210 --> 00:36:51,520
things, and these things only. It's about
the test

723
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:53,750
coverage. It's about the test ratio. And it's
about

724
00:36:53,750 --> 00:36:55,650
how fast your tests run.

725
00:36:55,650 --> 00:36:59,630
Like, that's the pedestal. That's the holy
grail. What

726
00:36:59,630 --> 00:37:03,730
actually happens underneath, the design of
the rest of

727
00:37:03,730 --> 00:37:07,140
the application is, eh. Doesn't really matter.

728
00:37:07,140 --> 00:37:10,000
And thus, a lot of people come to celebrate,

729
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:12,670
oh, I have a one to four test ratio.

730
00:37:12,670 --> 00:37:14,530
For every line of production code, I have
four

731
00:37:14,530 --> 00:37:18,630
lines of test. Oh yeah.

732
00:37:18,630 --> 00:37:22,569
And they say that with pride. And I'm like,

733
00:37:22,569 --> 00:37:25,230
what? So you're saying for every line of production

734
00:37:25,230 --> 00:37:26,890
code you write, you have to write four lines

735
00:37:26,890 --> 00:37:29,140
of code? And that somehow makes you a hero?

736
00:37:29,140 --> 00:37:31,400
How, how does that work?

737
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:34,109
So your system is now five times as large,

738
00:37:34,109 --> 00:37:35,770
reasoning about the whole system is now five
times

739
00:37:35,770 --> 00:37:38,760
as complex, and you're proud of this, why?
Well,

740
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:41,839
of course, because I have a hundred percent
coverage.

741
00:37:41,839 --> 00:37:44,980
My five thousand tests run incredibly fast
because they

742
00:37:44,980 --> 00:37:47,069
never actually test very much.

743
00:37:47,069 --> 00:37:49,420
They certainly do not test the system. They
test

744
00:37:49,420 --> 00:37:52,800
all these little slices of unit. Wonderful.

745
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,099
It's not wonderful. You have anemic fucking
tests. They

746
00:37:56,099 --> 00:37:57,970
don't prove shit. You're gonna have the same
bug

747
00:37:57,970 --> 00:38:00,119
that we have on base camp, and the system

748
00:38:00,119 --> 00:38:01,960
is not going to work even though you've proudly

749
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:05,540
proclaimed, oh, well, your units are working.

750
00:38:05,540 --> 00:38:10,240
Well, whoopity-doo. This decoupling is now
free. People think

751
00:38:10,240 --> 00:38:13,810
that, oh, this is like that saying, like,
quality's

752
00:38:13,810 --> 00:38:16,510
free. Right. Testing is free. Not when you're
doing

753
00:38:16,510 --> 00:38:21,020
it like this. It's not free.

754
00:38:21,020 --> 00:38:22,760
And most importantly, it's not free, not so
much

755
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:27,460
in time, but in conceptual overhead. Understanding
a system

756
00:38:27,460 --> 00:38:32,780
that has been test-driven designed from the
unit perspective

757
00:38:32,780 --> 00:38:36,400
is really hard. Because you have all these
levels

758
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:40,170
of indirection. You have all these levels
of intermediation.

759
00:38:40,170 --> 00:38:45,240
To separate the tests from slow things, like
HTML

760
00:38:45,240 --> 00:38:47,760
or the database or, any of the other parts

761
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,460
of the system that actually makes up your
system.

762
00:38:50,460 --> 00:38:53,800
And they focus just on that one thing. So

763
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:56,060
they can be very fast, if they don't have

764
00:38:56,060 --> 00:38:57,650
to work. They don't actually have to test
your

765
00:38:57,650 --> 00:38:58,990
system.

766
00:38:58,990 --> 00:39:01,280
So that's sort of two charges in one. It's

767
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:04,089
a charge first that your design is not going

768
00:39:04,089 --> 00:39:07,260
to improve. Your design is going to deteriorate
by

769
00:39:07,260 --> 00:39:11,069
doing test first programming, because you're
going to construct

770
00:39:11,069 --> 00:39:15,440
your units of testing, your methods, in a
different

771
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:16,980
way, like we say with the age example. You're

772
00:39:16,980 --> 00:39:19,970
going to inject all your dependencies in a
way

773
00:39:19,970 --> 00:39:21,980
that does not prove things.

774
00:39:21,980 --> 00:39:23,609
And second of all, you're not gonna get the

775
00:39:23,609 --> 00:39:26,530
benefit of great coverage. You might have
a lot

776
00:39:26,530 --> 00:39:28,470
of tests, but they don't test your system.
It

777
00:39:28,470 --> 00:39:33,140
doesn't improve your confidence in actually
the whole thing

778
00:39:33,140 --> 00:39:35,849
working, and then what good is it?

779
00:39:35,849 --> 00:39:40,900
Well, I thought about this for a long time

780
00:39:40,900 --> 00:39:44,950
and thought, like, this is not really, it
doesn't

781
00:39:44,950 --> 00:39:47,589
seem like that great of a revelation. Why,
why

782
00:39:47,589 --> 00:39:50,369
do I keep having these arguments over and
over

783
00:39:50,369 --> 00:39:52,920
again? Why are people focused so hard and
so

784
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:57,690
intensely on this trinity of test metrics?
How did

785
00:39:57,690 --> 00:40:00,510
that come to be the main thing that people

786
00:40:00,510 --> 00:40:01,530
are arguing about?

787
00:40:01,530 --> 00:40:03,230
How did that come to be the main decider

788
00:40:03,230 --> 00:40:05,670
of what's good design and what's bad design?
Really,

789
00:40:05,670 --> 00:40:09,760
couldn't really figure it out. Until I started
thinking

790
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:11,700
back of like, what is this prism we're looking

791
00:40:11,700 --> 00:40:17,630
through? We're looking through computer science.
Engineering. Professionalism.

792
00:40:17,630 --> 00:40:21,550
James Harrington wrote a bunch of books on
quality

793
00:40:21,550 --> 00:40:23,940
of engineering, and he has a great quote here.

794
00:40:23,940 --> 00:40:26,890
If you can't measure something, you can't
understand it.

795
00:40:26,890 --> 00:40:28,950
If you can't understand it, you can't control
it.

796
00:40:28,950 --> 00:40:31,280
If you can't control it, you can't improve
it.

797
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:36,309
That makes a lot of sense. Cause like, yeah,

798
00:40:36,309 --> 00:40:38,079
yeah, that makes sense. That's gotta be why.
And

799
00:40:38,079 --> 00:40:40,510
then I got another great quote. Just because
you

800
00:40:40,510 --> 00:40:43,040
can, just because something is easy to measure
doesn't

801
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:44,180
mean it's important.

802
00:40:44,180 --> 00:40:48,990
This, I think, is exactly what's going on
here.

803
00:40:48,990 --> 00:40:52,809
Programming of information systems is a lot
more like

804
00:40:52,809 --> 00:40:57,609
French poetry than it is like physics. But
programmers

805
00:40:57,609 --> 00:41:00,280
grow up thinking that they're computer scientists,
so they

806
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:03,210
want it really badly to be like physics. They

807
00:41:03,210 --> 00:41:06,710
want it really badly to be a hard, professional

808
00:41:06,710 --> 00:41:07,819
science.

809
00:41:07,819 --> 00:41:13,589
And coverage, ratio, and speed. You can get
that

810
00:41:13,589 --> 00:41:18,329
fucking thing down to six decimals. Like,
that, I

811
00:41:18,329 --> 00:41:20,349
can be so precise about how fast my test

812
00:41:20,349 --> 00:41:26,300
runs, eighty-four point seven percent coverage,
boom. Got it.

813
00:41:26,300 --> 00:41:28,020
Doesn't say anything about whether or not
that's actually

814
00:41:28,020 --> 00:41:31,750
important. Doesn't say anything about whether
that's actually producing

815
00:41:31,750 --> 00:41:33,550
a good system. Doesn't say anything about
whether the

816
00:41:33,550 --> 00:41:36,280
person after you, or you yourself, three months
from

817
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:38,369
now, can understand what the hell is going
on

818
00:41:38,369 --> 00:41:41,260
in this code base.

819
00:41:41,260 --> 00:41:43,480
You haven't necessarily made anything any
clearer. You've made

820
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:47,880
it very easy to produce metrics. And if there's

821
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:51,480
one thing we love with, with science, it's
clear

822
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:58,329
concise objective truths and coverage and
ratio and speed

823
00:41:58,329 --> 00:42:00,690
fit that bill. So we adopted them with open

824
00:42:00,690 --> 00:42:03,910
arms, even though they were not that important.

825
00:42:03,910 --> 00:42:08,450
Second part of it. Cost is not value. A

826
00:42:08,450 --> 00:42:12,180
lot of people have invested so much in building

827
00:42:12,180 --> 00:42:17,609
up their expertise, their time, their four-to-one
ratio in

828
00:42:17,609 --> 00:42:22,079
tests. The investment is massive. Well, of
course they're

829
00:42:22,079 --> 00:42:25,010
gonna be defensive about it. Like, you've
invested so

830
00:42:25,010 --> 00:42:28,319
much of your ego and your time and your

831
00:42:28,319 --> 00:42:31,069
resources on this project, into testing. So
of course

832
00:42:31,069 --> 00:42:33,369
it must be valuable. Of course it must be

833
00:42:33,369 --> 00:42:33,780
important.

834
00:42:33,780 --> 00:42:36,650
That's not how it works. Just because something
is

835
00:42:36,650 --> 00:42:39,410
really expensive, just because something takes
a lot of

836
00:42:39,410 --> 00:42:42,609
your time doesn't mean it's valuable. Doesn't
mean it's

837
00:42:42,609 --> 00:42:47,619
important.

838
00:42:47,619 --> 00:42:52,440
So I was sort of giving a brief description

839
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:57,079
of this talk yesterday at dinner with Aaron
Patterson,

840
00:42:57,079 --> 00:43:01,369
and he trolled me right back and said, TL;DR,

841
00:43:01,369 --> 00:43:03,940
just don't test, right. Like, that's what
I'm supposed

842
00:43:03,940 --> 00:43:06,990
to get out of this.

843
00:43:06,990 --> 00:43:12,430
No. No. Testing absolutely has value. Regression
testing absolutely

844
00:43:12,430 --> 00:43:18,089
has value. Driving your design through test
first? In

845
00:43:18,089 --> 00:43:23,040
my mind, rarely has value. Not never. There
are

846
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:25,010
times where I'll write my tests first, usually
when

847
00:43:25,010 --> 00:43:29,210
it's something like a translator of some kind,
where

848
00:43:29,210 --> 00:43:30,550
I know exactly what's going in and I know

849
00:43:30,550 --> 00:43:31,720
exactly what I want out.

850
00:43:31,720 --> 00:43:33,809
That could be a good case to start with

851
00:43:33,809 --> 00:43:37,000
test first. Most information system design
is not like

852
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:38,640
that. I'm trying to figure out and sell what

853
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:41,829
the system is supposed to do. What I'm going

854
00:43:41,829 --> 00:43:44,240
to arrive at is the test, is this set

855
00:43:44,240 --> 00:43:46,619
of tests, it's a set of regression tests,
that

856
00:43:46,619 --> 00:43:47,960
make me feel good about that after the fact,

857
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:50,430
that I can still change my system and not

858
00:43:50,430 --> 00:43:56,230
break it, right.

859
00:43:56,230 --> 00:44:03,230
So TDD. Kent Beck. Main proponent behind TDD
has

860
00:44:05,839 --> 00:44:08,869
a very sensible quote that goes exactly along
these

861
00:44:08,869 --> 00:44:12,210
lines. I get paid for code that works, not

862
00:44:12,210 --> 00:44:15,079
for tests, so my philosophy is to test as

863
00:44:15,079 --> 00:44:18,890
little as possible to reach a given level
of

864
00:44:18,890 --> 00:44:19,579
confidence.

865
00:44:19,579 --> 00:44:24,369
Immensely sensible. I find that that's actually
often the

866
00:44:24,369 --> 00:44:27,890
case with these things that get taken too
far.

867
00:44:27,890 --> 00:44:32,579
TDD started out as a pretty sensible thing.
Kent

868
00:44:32,579 --> 00:44:35,390
has an even more sensible perception of it
now,

869
00:44:35,390 --> 00:44:39,270
I think, than when he wrote the test-driven
book

870
00:44:39,270 --> 00:44:42,710
originally. But that's not what most people
take away.

871
00:44:42,710 --> 00:44:44,839
That's not what most people run with if they

872
00:44:44,839 --> 00:44:46,950
want to build a career on making people feel

873
00:44:46,950 --> 00:44:50,180
shitty about their code bases and their dirty,
dirty

874
00:44:50,180 --> 00:44:50,690
code.

875
00:44:50,690 --> 00:44:54,450
They take a much more extremist approach,
that unless

876
00:44:54,450 --> 00:44:59,440
you're doing test-first, you're not a professional.
Certainly not

877
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:01,839
what Kent's saying.

878
00:45:01,839 --> 00:45:06,619
OK. So for me, this really boils down to,

879
00:45:06,619 --> 00:45:09,950
we're, we're trying to wear the wrong hat
the

880
00:45:09,950 --> 00:45:13,089
majority of the time. Thinking of yourself
as a

881
00:45:13,089 --> 00:45:18,130
software engineer will lead you down the path
of

882
00:45:18,130 --> 00:45:24,150
coverage, speed, metrics, hard sciences - all
these things

883
00:45:24,150 --> 00:45:29,260
we can measure and it leave you laughing at

884
00:45:29,260 --> 00:45:34,720
shit like interpretation of French poetry.
Of subjective evaluations

885
00:45:34,720 --> 00:45:36,880
of a design in the system, even though these

886
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:39,640
are the only tools that we have.

887
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:43,349
So this has taken me awhile to arrive at

888
00:45:43,349 --> 00:45:45,960
this conclusion. I've hated the word software
engineer for

889
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:48,660
quite awhile. Cause I never felt it fit me.

890
00:45:48,660 --> 00:45:51,510
I never thought of myself as a software engineer.

891
00:45:51,510 --> 00:45:53,670
I kind of tried to be one, a few

892
00:45:53,670 --> 00:45:55,750
times, and I failed all the time. And by

893
00:45:55,750 --> 00:45:58,359
the time I finally arrived at programming
as something

894
00:45:58,359 --> 00:46:00,280
that I wanted to do, it sure as shit

895
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:02,569
wasn't software engineering.

896
00:46:02,569 --> 00:46:06,230
Yes. It's a hard hat that I wear occasionally,

897
00:46:06,230 --> 00:46:10,559
when I do performance optimization. That's
hard science. You

898
00:46:10,559 --> 00:46:13,220
make a change. You measure it. Was it an

899
00:46:13,220 --> 00:46:19,040
improvement? If not, revert. If yes, deploy.
Very scientific.

900
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:20,790
Very good.

901
00:46:20,790 --> 00:46:23,859
Great to wear the hard hat when that fits.

902
00:46:23,859 --> 00:46:25,680
Is what, that what I do the majority of

903
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:27,480
the time? Is that how I think of myself

904
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:29,480
when I write most of the things that I

905
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:31,300
write? When I add a new feature to base

906
00:46:31,300 --> 00:46:34,109
camp or do forensics to figure out how a

907
00:46:34,109 --> 00:46:37,119
bug came about, or what somebody meant when
they

908
00:46:37,119 --> 00:46:39,280
wrote a bug in or something? No. That's not

909
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:40,710
what I do.

910
00:46:40,710 --> 00:46:42,369
So I don't try to think of myself as

911
00:46:42,369 --> 00:46:43,530
a software engineer.

912
00:46:43,530 --> 00:46:48,040
OK. If we're not software engineers, most
of the

913
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:51,619
time when we make information systems, what
are we

914
00:46:51,619 --> 00:46:55,059
then? What other hat should we try to wear?

915
00:46:55,059 --> 00:46:58,520
What other identity should we try to aspire
to?

916
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:01,109
I think we had it all along. I think

917
00:47:01,109 --> 00:47:04,000
we had it in the language all along. We're

918
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:10,319
software writers. Writing is a much more apt
metaphor

919
00:47:10,319 --> 00:47:12,510
for what we do most of the time, than

920
00:47:12,510 --> 00:47:19,510
engineering is. Writing is about clarity.
It's about presenting

921
00:47:22,339 --> 00:47:28,460
information and motivations in a clear-to-follow
manner so that

922
00:47:28,460 --> 00:47:29,640
anybody can understand it.

923
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:33,770
There are not bonus points for making something
convoluted,

924
00:47:33,770 --> 00:47:37,349
as there often is with engineering and with
test-first

925
00:47:37,349 --> 00:47:40,390
design. Making things more convoluted gives
you the benefits

926
00:47:40,390 --> 00:47:44,000
of, perhaps, easier to test. They don't give
you

927
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:49,160
clarity. So those things are often in opposition.

928
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:52,640
Clarity is all about being succinct without
being terse.

929
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:56,140
WE can write things using as small words as

930
00:47:56,140 --> 00:47:59,670
we know how, using as little complication
as we

931
00:47:59,670 --> 00:48:03,299
know how, using as little conceptual overhead
as we

932
00:48:03,299 --> 00:48:06,950
know how to get the job done.

933
00:48:06,950 --> 00:48:10,140
That's a much better approach. And I think
it

934
00:48:10,140 --> 00:48:14,170
comes very easy if you think of software development

935
00:48:14,170 --> 00:48:16,760
as writing. If you look at a piece of

936
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:18,680
writing that somebody has written and it's
kind of

937
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:21,690
convoluted, can't really follow the argument,
and paragraphs are

938
00:48:21,690 --> 00:48:24,020
not broken up neatly, is the first thing you're

939
00:48:24,020 --> 00:48:25,500
gonna say, you know what the problem with
this

940
00:48:25,500 --> 00:48:28,760
is? You're not using big enough words.

941
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:30,829
If we just shoved some bigger words into this

942
00:48:30,829 --> 00:48:34,980
text, it's gonna be there. That's good. Oh.
The

943
00:48:34,980 --> 00:48:37,750
problem here is like, like your sentences
are too

944
00:48:37,750 --> 00:48:41,619
clear. If you just insert a sentence in the

945
00:48:41,619 --> 00:48:43,920
middle, that'd be great. Oh, do you know what?

946
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:46,799
This needs more semicolons. That's what this
needs. If

947
00:48:46,799 --> 00:48:50,910
this has more semicolons, boom. You got clarity.

948
00:48:50,910 --> 00:48:54,000
No. More indirection. More third-person. These
are not the

949
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:57,049
things that make for great, clear writing.
And that's

950
00:48:57,049 --> 00:48:59,630
obvious when we talk about things like writing.
SO

951
00:48:59,630 --> 00:49:02,869
if we talk about software development as writing,
I

952
00:49:02,869 --> 00:49:05,869
think it'll be obvious too. I think if we

953
00:49:05,869 --> 00:49:10,960
supplant the high ideal of what matters for
design

954
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:12,430
is how easy it is to test, how easy

955
00:49:12,430 --> 00:49:16,170
it is to make engineering driven, and put
clarity

956
00:49:16,170 --> 00:49:20,240
of the code base above all else, we're gonna

957
00:49:20,240 --> 00:49:22,660
be much better off. And arguments are gonna
be

958
00:49:22,660 --> 00:49:25,890
settled much easier. And it's gonna be much
easier

959
00:49:25,890 --> 00:49:27,670
to read the fucking code you wrote three months

960
00:49:27,670 --> 00:49:30,099
ago, because you had that in mind.

961
00:49:30,099 --> 00:49:31,680
That was your motivation. That was what you
were

962
00:49:31,680 --> 00:49:33,839
going for.

963
00:49:33,839 --> 00:49:38,010
So what is clarity? How do you figure that

964
00:49:38,010 --> 00:49:40,540
out, right? That's real easy to say, oh it's

965
00:49:40,540 --> 00:49:46,190
just clarity. Boom. It's open to interpretation,
right. It's

966
00:49:46,190 --> 00:49:47,910
not as clear as just saying, oh if you

967
00:49:47,910 --> 00:49:50,270
can just get your code coverage above 85%
then

968
00:49:50,270 --> 00:49:51,619
you're gold, right.

969
00:49:51,619 --> 00:49:53,599
Clarity doesn't work like that. There's not
a metric

970
00:49:53,599 --> 00:49:56,490
we can just apply, because, again, it's not
hard

971
00:49:56,490 --> 00:50:01,079
science. Clarity of writing is not hard science.

972
00:50:01,079 --> 00:50:05,290
So the easy answer is, I know when I

973
00:50:05,290 --> 00:50:08,640
see it. Right? There's not just gonna be a

974
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:11,960
list of principles and practices that somebody
can be

975
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:15,380
taught and then they will automatically produce
clear writing

976
00:50:15,380 --> 00:50:19,849
every time. Right? If you want to be a

977
00:50:19,849 --> 00:50:21,970
good writer, is it enough just to sit and

978
00:50:21,970 --> 00:50:28,160
memorize the dictionary? No. Just knowing
the words available

979
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:30,480
to you, knowing the patterns of development
is not

980
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:32,799
gonna make you a good developer.

981
00:50:32,799 --> 00:50:37,309
You have to develop an eye. You have to

982
00:50:37,309 --> 00:50:39,849
develop an eye for clarity, which means first
of

983
00:50:39,849 --> 00:50:41,450
all, you have to decide that that's important
to

984
00:50:41,450 --> 00:50:43,950
you. So that's the first step. If you're still

985
00:50:43,950 --> 00:50:46,450
stuck in, the most important thing about my
system

986
00:50:46,450 --> 00:50:49,040
is how fast my tests run, and how many

987
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:51,609
of them I have, well. Forget about it. You're

988
00:50:51,609 --> 00:50:52,740
not gonna get to this point.

989
00:50:52,740 --> 00:50:54,440
You have to decide that the most important
thing

990
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:59,130
for your system is clarity. When you do decide

991
00:50:59,130 --> 00:51:02,420
that, you can start developing an eye. I started

992
00:51:02,420 --> 00:51:07,540
getting into photography maybe six years ago.
When I

993
00:51:07,540 --> 00:51:10,250
first got into photography, like, I would
look at

994
00:51:10,250 --> 00:51:12,530
a picture and it was like, well, looks like

995
00:51:12,530 --> 00:51:13,349
a good picture.

996
00:51:13,349 --> 00:51:15,170
Now, I've been looking at thousands of pictures.
I've

997
00:51:15,170 --> 00:51:18,040
been taking thousands of pictures. And I've
developed an

998
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:20,270
eye. I can see when the white balance is

999
00:51:20,270 --> 00:51:23,280
off. I can see, oh, this has a blue

1000
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:25,420
tint. Oh, this actually, if we crop it just

1001
00:51:25,420 --> 00:51:27,839
a little bit more, only the subjects we want

1002
00:51:27,839 --> 00:51:29,329
to have in focus are in focus. Oh, this

1003
00:51:29,329 --> 00:51:31,920
would actually be better in black and white.

1004
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:36,309
That eye just came from doing it. A lot.

1005
00:51:36,309 --> 00:51:37,890
It didn't come from just sitting down and
reading

1006
00:51:37,890 --> 00:51:42,170
a lot of photography books. And I think it's

1007
00:51:42,170 --> 00:51:44,089
the same thing with code. I think a lot

1008
00:51:44,089 --> 00:51:47,990
of programmers, coming at it from a software
engineering

1009
00:51:47,990 --> 00:51:50,020
angle, thing that just all they have to do

1010
00:51:50,020 --> 00:51:55,270
is learn the practices, learn the patterns,
memorize them

1011
00:51:55,270 --> 00:51:57,619
all, and then they will be good programmers.

1012
00:51:57,619 --> 00:52:00,640
No, they won't. The only way to become a

1013
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:04,099
good programmer, where, by definition, I define
good programmers

1014
00:52:04,099 --> 00:52:07,410
as somebody who programs, who writes software
with clarity,

1015
00:52:07,410 --> 00:52:10,450
is to read a lot of software, write a

1016
00:52:10,450 --> 00:52:12,569
lot of software.

1017
00:52:12,569 --> 00:52:13,859
Just like how do you become a good photographer?

1018
00:52:13,859 --> 00:52:15,950
You take a lot of pictures. And you look

1019
00:52:15,950 --> 00:52:18,020
at them. And you practice. And you practice.
And

1020
00:52:18,020 --> 00:52:20,220
you practice.

1021
00:52:20,220 --> 00:52:22,150
I think it's quite similar to the problem
with

1022
00:52:22,150 --> 00:52:26,460
diets, right. The fundamental truth with diets
is to

1023
00:52:26,460 --> 00:52:29,339
be healthy you should probably exercise regularly,
you should

1024
00:52:29,339 --> 00:52:32,849
probably eat a reasonable amount and it should
be

1025
00:52:32,849 --> 00:52:37,440
good stuff. Like, that's three things. Incredibly
hard to

1026
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:41,240
do. Most people do not do that, right. Figuring

1027
00:52:41,240 --> 00:52:43,770
out how to write good software: read a lot

1028
00:52:43,770 --> 00:52:47,660
of software, write a lot of software, aim
for

1029
00:52:47,660 --> 00:52:49,270
clarity. It sounds too simple.

1030
00:52:49,270 --> 00:52:51,460
Why is it simple? Because there's not just
a

1031
00:52:51,460 --> 00:52:53,730
secret. There's not just one answer somebody
can give

1032
00:52:53,730 --> 00:52:57,210
you. The only way you can get there is

1033
00:52:57,210 --> 00:53:01,520
by doing it. So when I first started developing

1034
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:06,470
Rails, I read a ton of software. I read

1035
00:53:06,470 --> 00:53:10,579
the entire Ruby standard library. Partly because
documentation of

1036
00:53:10,579 --> 00:53:12,559
Ruby at that time was pretty poor, and the

1037
00:53:12,559 --> 00:53:13,510
only way to figure out how it worked was

1038
00:53:13,510 --> 00:53:15,549
to actually look at the code. But that was

1039
00:53:15,549 --> 00:53:17,760
also where I learned so much.

1040
00:53:17,760 --> 00:53:22,349
Today, we have it so much easier. Bundle open

1041
00:53:22,349 --> 00:53:24,799
name of any gem, and it'll open, boom, right

1042
00:53:24,799 --> 00:53:26,170
up in your text editor. You can look at

1043
00:53:26,170 --> 00:53:28,770
any code.

1044
00:53:28,770 --> 00:53:31,599
How many of you have read through a complete

1045
00:53:31,599 --> 00:53:37,490
gem recently. Something you did not write.
Awesome. That's

1046
00:53:37,490 --> 00:53:39,390
actually really encouraging. I thought it
would be much

1047
00:53:39,390 --> 00:53:40,470
less.

1048
00:53:40,470 --> 00:53:42,119
I think that is exactly the path you need

1049
00:53:42,119 --> 00:53:44,119
to take. You need to read a shit ton

1050
00:53:44,119 --> 00:53:45,839
of code. And it's not so much just because

1051
00:53:45,839 --> 00:53:47,430
you read this code and then, oh that's all

1052
00:53:47,430 --> 00:53:50,910
great stuff. Just as important as it is to,

1053
00:53:50,910 --> 00:53:53,200
to develop your sense of writing by reading
a

1054
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:57,670
lot of shit writing, so is it with code.

1055
00:53:57,670 --> 00:53:58,809
And I think you will find that that is

1056
00:53:58,809 --> 00:54:01,619
actually very easy. Because a lot of things
you'll

1057
00:54:01,619 --> 00:54:07,150
do bundle open on will follow Sturgeon's Revelation.
90%

1058
00:54:07,150 --> 00:54:08,780
of everything is crap.

1059
00:54:08,780 --> 00:54:12,970
Well, at least you know you have company if

1060
00:54:12,970 --> 00:54:15,170
you write crap software and I certainly do
from

1061
00:54:15,170 --> 00:54:17,980
time to time. And that's a great way to

1062
00:54:17,980 --> 00:54:20,970
learn. I actually find that I learn the most

1063
00:54:20,970 --> 00:54:23,410
about software and learn the most about what
matters

1064
00:54:23,410 --> 00:54:25,579
to me, I learn the most about what clarity

1065
00:54:25,579 --> 00:54:28,309
is when I read poor software.

1066
00:54:28,309 --> 00:54:30,359
Because what I do is, I take a piece

1067
00:54:30,359 --> 00:54:33,819
of software, I take a class or method, and

1068
00:54:33,819 --> 00:54:35,940
then I look at it, how could this be

1069
00:54:35,940 --> 00:54:37,460
clearer? Like this is, I think this is poorly

1070
00:54:37,460 --> 00:54:41,109
written. I think this smells. How can I rewrite

1071
00:54:41,109 --> 00:54:41,990
it?

1072
00:54:41,990 --> 00:54:43,640
So by just sitting down and going through
that

1073
00:54:43,640 --> 00:54:46,150
exercise and rewriting it, I find I learn
a

1074
00:54:46,150 --> 00:54:49,000
whole lot about what I care about. So that's

1075
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:51,700
what I've been doing lately. Engaging in a
lot

1076
00:54:51,700 --> 00:54:54,150
of these internet arguments. Somebody will
submit a piece

1077
00:54:54,150 --> 00:54:58,890
of code, and usually the submission will come
along

1078
00:54:58,890 --> 00:55:00,319
with the proposed solution, too, right.

1079
00:55:00,319 --> 00:55:02,730
I have this shitty piece of code. Then I

1080
00:55:02,730 --> 00:55:06,619
learned about these three patterns. And now
it's wonderful.

1081
00:55:06,619 --> 00:55:09,280
And what I have found every single time, and

1082
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:11,180
I've only done this maybe a handful of times,

1083
00:55:11,180 --> 00:55:13,660
maybe a little more, is that every single
time,

1084
00:55:13,660 --> 00:55:15,130
you just took the shitty code and you stuck

1085
00:55:15,130 --> 00:55:16,520
it into some different boxes.

1086
00:55:16,520 --> 00:55:19,049
Like, it didn't actually improve. Applying
the pattern to

1087
00:55:19,049 --> 00:55:21,799
it did not improve the underlying clarity
of the

1088
00:55:21,799 --> 00:55:25,329
code, because you just wrote it poorly. Like,
the

1089
00:55:25,329 --> 00:55:27,020
problem with the code was not that it was

1090
00:55:27,020 --> 00:55:29,920
missing patterns. The problem with the code
was that

1091
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:32,880
it was crap. That it just had to be

1092
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:34,730
rewritten.

1093
00:55:34,730 --> 00:55:41,730
Now, that leads us to sort of a mission,

1094
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:44,990
in some ways, from Rails is and what Ruby

1095
00:55:44,990 --> 00:55:48,700
is, and it leads also to clarify some of

1096
00:55:48,700 --> 00:55:50,400
the arguments we've had in the Rails community
for

1097
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:54,299
awhile. Readability is incredibly important
to Ruby. We have

1098
00:55:54,299 --> 00:55:57,309
a lot of duplicated methods that do exactly
the

1099
00:55:57,309 --> 00:56:01,349
same thing, just so we can improve readability.

1100
00:56:01,349 --> 00:56:04,950
I remember the first time I saw unless, when

1101
00:56:04,950 --> 00:56:06,920
I was learning about Ruby. That was one of

1102
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:09,760
those light bulb moments. It's like, wait
a minute.

1103
00:56:09,760 --> 00:56:13,990
Unless is exactly the same as if not, but

1104
00:56:13,990 --> 00:56:18,740
it's a different keyword. Huh.

1105
00:56:18,740 --> 00:56:21,500
Right? It was not just about making the most

1106
00:56:21,500 --> 00:56:28,500
efficient, compact language. It was about
readability. Poof!

1107
00:56:30,200 --> 00:56:32,559
Mind blown.

1108
00:56:32,559 --> 00:56:37,270
And decade-long love-affair with Ruby established.
And I think

1109
00:56:37,270 --> 00:56:40,539
that this is what we're trying to achieve
constantly

1110
00:56:40,539 --> 00:56:43,079
in Rails as well. A lot of people will

1111
00:56:43,079 --> 00:56:46,170
gripe about, oh, ActiveRecord is too big or
something

1112
00:56:46,170 --> 00:56:49,140
is too big, or have too many methods. The

1113
00:56:49,140 --> 00:56:51,799
surface area is too big or there's, whatever
it

1114
00:56:51,799 --> 00:56:52,450
is, right.

1115
00:56:52,450 --> 00:56:55,099
Like, who gives a shit? Is it more readable?

1116
00:56:55,099 --> 00:56:57,480
Is it more clear? That's the only thing that

1117
00:56:57,480 --> 00:56:59,839
matters. What do I care whether the surface
area

1118
00:56:59,839 --> 00:57:02,490
of a method is a hundred methods or it's

1119
00:57:02,490 --> 00:57:04,520
two hundred methods? I don't give a shit about

1120
00:57:04,520 --> 00:57:05,690
that. The only thing I give a shit about

1121
00:57:05,690 --> 00:57:07,670
is whether, is the code I'm actually reading,
is

1122
00:57:07,670 --> 00:57:10,210
the system I'm trying to understand, is that
more

1123
00:57:10,210 --> 00:57:12,680
clear. When you put clarity as your number
one

1124
00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:15,410
mission, a lot of concerns just fall by the

1125
00:57:15,410 --> 00:57:15,520
wayside.

1126
00:57:15,520 --> 00:57:21,510
It just doesn't matter anymore. And it's liberating.

1127
00:57:21,510 --> 00:57:24,430
So, I think this actually comes from sort
of

1128
00:57:24,430 --> 00:57:26,109
the same rope. I didn't have time to write

1129
00:57:26,109 --> 00:57:27,950
a short letter, so I wrote a long one

1130
00:57:27,950 --> 00:57:32,160
instead. I think that describes about eighty
percent of

1131
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:34,559
all that ninety percent of shitty code.

1132
00:57:34,559 --> 00:57:39,200
Most people did not take the time to write

1133
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:40,680
a short piece of code, so they wrote a

1134
00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:42,900
long one instead. And then they wrote that
long

1135
00:57:42,900 --> 00:57:45,359
one, piece of code, and they like, pulled
out

1136
00:57:45,359 --> 00:57:47,960
their suspenders and like, oh yeah, I'm done.
My

1137
00:57:47,960 --> 00:57:49,059
tests pass.

1138
00:57:49,059 --> 00:57:52,400
Boom. Right? Or they look at it and decide,

1139
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:54,180
oh shit, this is too long. I must be

1140
00:57:54,180 --> 00:57:57,869
missing some patterns. I just sprinkle some
patterns over

1141
00:57:57,869 --> 00:58:03,430
this. Wonders, right? No. What you wrote was
a

1142
00:58:03,430 --> 00:58:05,930
draft.

1143
00:58:05,930 --> 00:58:08,740
This was just a first draft, right. Any piece

1144
00:58:08,740 --> 00:58:12,099
of code you write down is just a draft.

1145
00:58:12,099 --> 00:58:16,230
Mark Twain actually had the hard job, right.
He

1146
00:58:16,230 --> 00:58:18,420
wrote in ink. If you actually had to change

1147
00:58:18,420 --> 00:58:20,579
that, well that was kind of hard, right. So

1148
00:58:20,579 --> 00:58:23,410
his drafts were a lot more complicated. Ours?
We

1149
00:58:23,410 --> 00:58:25,960
have it so easy. A text editor? You just

1150
00:58:25,960 --> 00:58:28,430
delete stuff. And you don't need any of the

1151
00:58:28,430 --> 00:58:30,109
little stuff that you, you fill over the page

1152
00:58:30,109 --> 00:58:33,049
and you spill it everywhere and so forth.
An

1153
00:58:33,049 --> 00:58:33,839
eraser.

1154
00:58:33,839 --> 00:58:36,250
You can just delete stuff. Like that's my
favorite

1155
00:58:36,250 --> 00:58:40,890
key. The delete key. It's the number one tool

1156
00:58:40,890 --> 00:58:47,539
for improving code. Delete key.

1157
00:58:47,539 --> 00:58:52,650
So when I was in high school, I submitted

1158
00:58:52,650 --> 00:58:56,670
a bunch of first drafts as essays, and they

1159
00:58:56,670 --> 00:58:58,539
were really shitty. And of course they were.
They

1160
00:58:58,539 --> 00:59:00,809
were the first draft. And my teacher at the

1161
00:59:00,809 --> 00:59:03,319
time said, oh, all right, all right, this
is

1162
00:59:03,319 --> 00:59:05,890
actually not bad. You just told me the step

1163
00:59:05,890 --> 00:59:07,440
one. If you have something on your mind, you

1164
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:08,680
should write it down.

1165
00:59:08,680 --> 00:59:10,349
That's what I did. I, I wrote it down.

1166
00:59:10,349 --> 00:59:12,809
And then I handed it in. Oh, if you've

1167
00:59:12,809 --> 00:59:15,480
written something down, you should rewrite
it.

1168
00:59:15,480 --> 00:59:18,460
Oh. That was the step I missed. And I

1169
00:59:18,460 --> 00:59:20,530
think that's the step most people miss when
they

1170
00:59:20,530 --> 00:59:22,910
write down code. Cause they're focused on
all these

1171
00:59:22,910 --> 00:59:24,970
other things. They're not focused on the clarity,
because

1172
00:59:24,970 --> 00:59:26,359
when you are focused on the clarity, you will

1173
00:59:26,359 --> 00:59:30,740
realize that all your first drafts are terrible.

1174
00:59:30,740 --> 00:59:33,380
All my first drafts are terrible. All my first

1175
00:59:33,380 --> 00:59:36,240
attempts at writing a good class are poor.
They're

1176
00:59:36,240 --> 00:59:39,569
too long. They're not at the same level of

1177
00:59:39,569 --> 00:59:42,770
abstraction. They're not clear. And that's
OK. I wrote

1178
00:59:42,770 --> 00:59:44,089
something down. I was trying to figure out
what

1179
00:59:44,089 --> 00:59:47,049
the system was supposed to do.

1180
00:59:47,049 --> 00:59:48,950
That's hard work. And often times you don't
get

1181
00:59:48,950 --> 00:59:50,589
perfect code out of that when you're still
trying

1182
00:59:50,589 --> 00:59:53,099
to figure out what it is that you're writing.

1183
00:59:53,099 --> 00:59:55,710
But once you've written it down, you should
rewrite

1184
00:59:55,710 --> 00:59:57,559
it.

1185
00:59:57,559 --> 01:00:03,480
And I think the key part of rewriting is

1186
01:00:03,480 --> 01:00:06,730
omitting needless words when it comes to regular
writing.

1187
01:00:06,730 --> 01:00:10,970
When it comes to programming, it's omitting
needless concepts.

1188
01:00:10,970 --> 01:00:14,920
It's omitting needless patterns. It's omitting
needless practices. It's

1189
01:00:14,920 --> 01:00:21,260
omitting needless classes. It's omitting all
these extra things

1190
01:00:21,260 --> 01:00:25,130
that aren't getting you closer to clarity,
right.

1191
01:00:25,130 --> 01:00:27,099
How do you know? You develop an eye for

1192
01:00:27,099 --> 01:00:28,960
it. How do you develop an eye? You read

1193
01:00:28,960 --> 01:00:30,099
a lot of code. You write a lot of

1194
01:00:30,099 --> 01:00:32,980
code. You rewrite a lot of code. And you

1195
01:00:32,980 --> 01:00:36,809
forget about fucking patterns for awhile.
You forget about

1196
01:00:36,809 --> 01:00:39,930
fucking TDD for awhile. And you focus on just

1197
01:00:39,930 --> 01:00:42,250
what's in front of you. The piece of code.

1198
01:00:42,250 --> 01:00:44,640
How can I write it simpler?

1199
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:48,219
Write software well. Thank you very much.