The Perils Of Software Engineering

My keynote from PyCon SG 2015.

1. Andrew Godwin @andrewgodwin PERILS OF THE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
2. Andrew Godwin Hi, I'm Django Core Developer Senior Engineer at Far too many hobbies
3. "Perils"
4. Computer Science ≠ Software Engineering
5. Engineering Mechanical Civil Software Chemical Materials
6. Mechanical Engineering https://www.flickr.com/photos/mariaeklind/
7. Nondeterministic
8. Cost of Entry
9. Civil Engineering
10. Timescales
11. Cost of Failure
12. Aerospace Software Engineering
13. Cost of Failure
14. Failure: When, not if
15. Margaret Hamilton, 1969
16. Apollo 11 LM, "Eagle"
17. Web/App Software Engineering
18. Quick to build and test
19. Minimal equipment costs
20. Well-paid
21. Well-paid
22. Explicit is better than Implicit
23. Code Indirection
24. class MyView(View): def get(self, request): return self.render(request, "template.html")
25. class MyView(FormView, AuditMixin, OtherMixin): def get(self, request): return self.render(request, "template.html") class AuditMixin(BaseAuditor, AdditionalStuff): ... class OtherMixin(MyObject, SomethingElse): ...
26. Async Uncertainty
27. def async_handler(): with open("my_file.txt", "r") as fh: write_socket(1, fh.read()) redis.incr("key1", 2)
28. Schemas
29. { "id": 342, "name": "David", "weight": 74, } { "id": 342, "name": "Ellie", "weight": "85kg", } { "id": 342, "nom": "Frankie", "weight": 77, } { "id": 342, "name": "Frankie", "weight": -67, }
30. Clever code is bad Maintainable code is good
31. xs = [number for inner in nested if len(inner) > 2 for number in inner]
32. for inner in nested: if len(inner) > 2: for number in inner: xs.append(number)
33. Explore and Discard
34. There is no perfect solution
35. Throwing everything away rarely works
36. Backwards compatability is your friend
37. Nobody is a genius; we're all mediocre
38. Argue over code, not over ideas
39. Well-paid
40. 10 years? 100 years? 1000 years?
41. Who will access it?
42. What format will it be?
43. Is it even important?
44. Over thousands of years, the machine memories have been filled with programs that can help “ “ A Deepness In The Sky Vernor Vinge
45. Engineering is collaborative
46. Build well.
47. Thanks. Andrew Godwin @andrewgodwin