I'm thinking about
My 2021 Year in Review - I'm not the "new year new me" kind of person but each December I reflect on the past twelve months. In a way, nothing happened in 2021. From a bird’s eye view, I spent most of my time in front of a screen, running or reading. At the same time, it felt like a whole decade. I'm deeply grateful and humbled by all the love and recognition that I got this year.
The best article I read
Rethinking Design Patterns - I’ve never even thought of criticizing the established design patterns. Even thinking about their faults could be taken as heresy. The “Gang of Four” book contributed a lot by popularising and standardizing common patterns in C++ but as languages evolve, are they becoming less applicable? I have rarely if ever, reached for one while working in front-end development in the past.
The best talk I watched
Design, Composition, and Performance - I enjoy all of Rich Hickey’s talks but this one especially was a joy to listen to. He outlines the similarities between playing music and creating software and once again emphasizes the importance of design and planning. I love it when he explains how configuration is not designed, it’s just laziness. Design is about making decisions.
The best idea I found
Functional core, imperative shell - This is a hands-on example of how we can apply functional programming in the context of an application. The business logic becomes this encapsulated entity, written in a functional way. Free of side effects and state it can be tested easily. It is then wrapped in an imperative shell that becomes its interface to the world and deals with I/O.
The best quote I pondered
"Designing software is mostly a listening activity, and we often have to be part software engineer, part psychic, and part anthropologist." – Justin Etheredge
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