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
770
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
320
Django Through The Years
andrewgodwin
0
210
Writing Maintainable Software At Scale
andrewgodwin
0
450
A Newcomer's Guide To Airflow's Architecture
andrewgodwin
0
360
Async, Python, and the Future
andrewgodwin
2
670
How To Break Django: With Async
andrewgodwin
1
730
Taking Django's ORM Async
andrewgodwin
0
730
The Long Road To Asynchrony
andrewgodwin
0
660
Pioneering Real-Time
andrewgodwin
0
440
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
あのころの iPod を どうにか再生させたい
orumin
2
2.5k
新しいモバイルアプリ勉強会(仮)について
uetyo
1
260
AI OCR API on Lambdaを Datadogで可視化してみた
nealle
0
150
開発チーム・開発組織の設計改善スキルの向上
masuda220
PRO
3
200
Understanding Ruby Grammar Through Conflicts
yui_knk
1
120
なぜ今、Terraformの本を書いたのか? - 著者陣に聞く!『Terraformではじめる実践IaC』登壇資料
fufuhu
4
640
実践!App Intents対応
yuukiw00w
1
320
[FEConf 2025] 모노레포 절망편, 14개 레포로 부활하기까지 걸린 1년
mmmaxkim
0
850
Amazon Q CLI開発で学んだAIコーディングツールの使い方
licux
3
190
AWS Serverless Application Model入門_20250708
smatsuzaki
0
120
TDD 実践ミニトーク
contour_gara
0
120
JetBrainsのAI機能の紹介 #jjug
yusuke
0
210
Featured
See All Featured
Adopting Sorbet at Scale
ufuk
77
9.5k
A Tale of Four Properties
chriscoyier
160
23k
Testing 201, or: Great Expectations
jmmastey
45
7.6k
Code Review Best Practice
trishagee
70
19k
Creating an realtime collaboration tool: Agile Flush - .NET Oxford
marcduiker
31
2.2k
The Invisible Side of Design
smashingmag
301
51k
The Straight Up "How To Draw Better" Workshop
denniskardys
236
140k
Understanding Cognitive Biases in Performance Measurement
bluesmoon
29
1.8k
The Language of Interfaces
destraynor
160
25k
Designing Experiences People Love
moore
142
24k
Done Done
chrislema
185
16k
Building Applications with DynamoDB
mza
96
6.6k
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