Tom Dalling

Software developer & writeabouterer. Hot takes and grumbling into the void.

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[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

I'm pleased to announce v1 of Tom's Data Onion — a programming puzzle in a text file.

Let me know what you think! #TomsDataOnion

https://t.co/zWcHtEj8p7

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@carlchan1964 Thanks Carl! I barely use Twitter (X?) anymore, but this was a nice surprise to see when I logged in.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@shimurokha @nateberkopec Yep

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@nateberkopec Deprecating controllers specs in favour of request specs was a step in the right direction, although not everyone seems to have got the memo.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@nateberkopec Yeah, basically. An endpoint is an easily-testable function that takes a request and returns a response (streaming responses are a bit different, but still). Rails gonna Rails, though.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@allenholub Let’s have a look at Shi'er lü, the ancient Chinese music scale from before Big Pythagoras started spreading fake news. What a coincidence that it uses the same ratios.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@allenholub And what makes notes sound good together, Allen? Why are fifths always harmonic? Of course Pythagoras didn’t invent music. Do you also argue that gravity has no relation to math because Newton didn’t invent gravity?

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

I don’t think he realises how much of a self burn this is.

[DHH @dhh]

If you're unable to create a majestic monolith with basic programming tools like encapsulation and namespaces, you don't have what it takes to improve upon the situation with a distributed swarm of microservices. Your spaghetti code will just be on five different plates.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@brandontroberts Probably “this should be reusable” (which btw is not feedback I’d typically give). IMO reviews are about the code, and less about who wrote it.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@HashNotAdam Packwerk is exactly the kind of thing you want at larger team sizes, but it’s also going against the grain of Rails. DHH is a lone wolf and Rails is his personal “survival kit”, so it’s not surprising, just annoying that we have to rely on e.g. Shopify to make workarounds.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@HashNotAdam It’s less frameworks succeeding/falling, and more designs being better/worse. E.g. ActionController scales okish. There’s no reason why better design has to be less flexible. It should actually be the opposite. Bad design restricts your options, which is why AR is painful.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@MissRahee That’s the ideal, and if you can enforce that standard it will help. Even so, you can still run into the problem of important/risky things being deferred until late in the project.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

Continuing from last week: Against Must-Haves (Part Two) https://t.co/0l3DQVQiWt

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@MissRahee Thanks Adam! In the article I was imagining that stuff was still getting done every cycle and being demoed. IMO demos show velocity, but don't necessarily derisk the project. Put another way: demos show that things are getting done, but don't ensure they are the right things.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@nateberkopec Yep, but it at least gives control to the frontend, vs a typical REST API that responds with everything regardless of whether the frontend wants it. Some sophisticated REST APIs do give you that control, but they're not common and kinda complicated to implement well.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@t3dotgg So what do you see as your biggest factors that prevent bugs, if it’s not a test suite?

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@t3dotgg I don’t doubt you, but there is more than one potential explanation for this.

[Tom Dalling @tom_dalling]

@GranataLLC @unclebobmartin @martinfowler “Recovery” or “rest” implies that you’re deliberately working at an unsustainable pace. If the pace was sustainable then rest wouldn’t be necessary.