Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
The Scientist & The Engineer
Search
Andrew Godwin
February 07, 2020
Programming
1
750
The Scientist & The Engineer
My keynote from PyCon Colombia 2020.
Andrew Godwin
February 07, 2020
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Andrew Godwin
See All by Andrew Godwin
Reconciling Everything
andrewgodwin
1
310
Django Through The Years
andrewgodwin
0
200
Writing Maintainable Software At Scale
andrewgodwin
0
430
A Newcomer's Guide To Airflow's Architecture
andrewgodwin
0
350
Async, Python, and the Future
andrewgodwin
2
650
How To Break Django: With Async
andrewgodwin
1
720
Taking Django's ORM Async
andrewgodwin
0
720
The Long Road To Asynchrony
andrewgodwin
0
650
Pioneering Real-Time
andrewgodwin
0
420
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
Proxmoxをまとめて管理できるコンソール作ってみました
karugamo
1
440
UPDATEがシステムを複雑にする? イミュータブルデータモデルのすすめ
shimomura
0
400
JVM の仕組みを理解して PHP で実装してみよう
m3m0r7
PRO
1
260
Parallel::Pipesの紹介
skaji
2
890
RubyKaigi Hack Space in Tokyo & 函館最速 "予習" 会 / RubyKaigi Hack Space in Tokyo & The Fastest Briefing of RubyKaigi 2026 in Hakodate
moznion
1
130
Blueskyのプラグインを作ってみた
hakkadaikon
1
360
從零到一:搭建你的第一個 Observability 平台
blueswen
0
290
List Unfolding - 'unfold' as the Computational Dual of 'fold', and how 'unfold' relates to 'iterate'"
philipschwarz
PRO
0
160
Agent Rules as Domain Parser
yodakeisuke
1
410
単体テストの始め方/作り方
toms74209200
0
330
複数アプリケーションを育てていくための共通化戦略
irof
9
3.4k
TypeScriptのmoduleオプションを改めて整理する
bicstone
4
450
Featured
See All Featured
Designing for humans not robots
tammielis
253
25k
Building Adaptive Systems
keathley
42
2.6k
[RailsConf 2023 Opening Keynote] The Magic of Rails
eileencodes
29
9.5k
RailsConf 2023
tenderlove
30
1.1k
Side Projects
sachag
454
42k
How STYLIGHT went responsive
nonsquared
100
5.6k
Understanding Cognitive Biases in Performance Measurement
bluesmoon
29
1.7k
[RailsConf 2023] Rails as a piece of cake
palkan
55
5.6k
Build The Right Thing And Hit Your Dates
maggiecrowley
35
2.7k
Bash Introduction
62gerente
614
210k
Connecting the Dots Between Site Speed, User Experience & Your Business [WebExpo 2025]
tammyeverts
1
96
Building an army of robots
kneath
306
45k
Transcript
THE SCIENTIST ANDREW GODWIN // @andrewgodwin THE ENGINEER AND
Hi, I’m Andrew Godwin
I call myself an "engineer"
But I studied Computer Science
I knew programming going in. But this was different.
“ Edsger Dijkstra Computer science is no more about computers
than astronomy is about telescopes.
Computer Science is idealistic
"Turing-complete"
We first want to prove it is possible
async def sleep_sort(numbers): async def sleep_add(number): await asyncio.sleep(number) result.append(number) result
= [] await asyncio.wait([ sleep_add(number) for number in numbers ]) return result
We can prove that programs are correct
def is_two(number): return number == 2
>>> import __builtin__ >>> __builtin__.True = False >>> True False
>>> True == False True (Thankfully, only works in Python 2!)
"Communicating Sequential Processes", C. A. R Hoare
contains :: (Ord a) => (Tree a) -> a ->
Bool contains Nil _ = False contains (Node t1 v t2) x | x == v = True | x < v = contains t1 x | x > v = contains t2 x
A perfect world, of perfect programs
“ Benjamin Brewster In theory there is no difference between
theory and practice. In practice there is.
Software Engineering takes shortcuts
When is it safe to take a risk?
None
Software is faster and cheaper to change
The real world is a nasty place
How often does a cosmic ray affect RAM? 36 hours
(for 16GB; "SEU at Ground Level", Eugene Normand) How long can an unpowered SSD keep data? 3 weeks - 1 year (Enterprise at 40ºC, Client at 30ºC; Intel/JEDEC) Does quantum tunneling affect CPUs? Continuously!
Always design for failure
How do we reason about software?
Input Process Output
async def disable_alarm(): ... async def open_door(): ... await asyncio.wait(
[disable_alarm(), open_door()] )
Input Rendering Output Validation Reporting Storage Processing Logging Cache
Django has 250,000 lines of code
An Airbus A380 has 4,000,000 parts
A new car has 100,000,000 lines of code
How are we supposed to handle this?
Abstract, verify and forget
Abstract Define a contract - types, behaviour, exceptions Verify Write
tests to keep the contract valid Forget Work with the contract, not the fine details
You have to learn to forget
Engineering is communication
“ Grace Hopper A ship in port is safe, but
that's not what ships are built for.
Build to expect growth
Build to expect failure
Everyone can build near-perfect software
Know when not to!
Python lets you do both.
Types Start without types, progressively add with mypy Async Make
it work synchronously first. Add async later. Speed Write slow, understandable code. Test it. Then improve it.
Scientists observe and question
Engineers build and invent
All software has consequences
Be the scientist and the engineer
Gracias. Andrew Godwin @andrewgodwin // aeracode.org