Managing Success: We made it, now we're screwed

Life as a startup, whether a bootstrapped company or an experimental project within an enterprise, is hard. You have to struggle to earn success. Lean, pivots, minimal viable products, and other buzzwords all steps along this journey. The struggle makes the eventual success that much sweeter. But it can also lead to suboptimal code, confusing logic, and general friction to getting things done.

In this talk I'll discuss ways to identify areas of your Rails app improve and strategies for improving the quality over time. I'll share insights on managing several large Rails applications, the dangers of the single, monolithic, ball of mud Rails app, and what changes make the biggest impact.

Transcript

1. Managing Success We made it, now we're screwed
6. You == Pain
7. (NIH) Not Invented Here
8. Why?
9. Conway's Law
10. Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations. - Melvin Conway
11. "Ruby is designed to make programmers happy." - Matz
12. #1 Problem?
13. Monolithic
14. Models
15. Testing
16. TDD != QA
17. Pain
18. Pain
19. Pain
20. Cost Time Cost per change (bugs, new features, etc) Non-TDD TDD
21. Models Controllers/Routes Views/Helpers Application In Browser Cost per test
22. Models Controllers/Routes Views/Helpers Application In Browser ROI per test
23. Monolithic Models
24. 2 Rules
25. 1) Delarative
26. 2) Level of Abstraction
27. <ul> <% @article.tags.each do |tag| -%> <li><%= link_to "#{tag.name} (#{tag.articles.length})", tag_path(tag) %></li> <% end %> </ul>
28. <ul> <% @article.tags.each do |tag| -%> <li><%= link_to "#{tag.name} (#{tag.article_count})", tag_path(tag) %></li> <% end %> </ul>
29. <ul> <% @article.tags.each do |tag| -%> <li><%= link_to "#{tag.name} (#{tag.article_count})", tag_path(tag) %></li> <% end %> </ul>
30. class Tag < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :article def article_count self.articles.count end end
31. class Tag < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :article def article_count # Performance hack # faster than SELECT COUNT(*) self.articles.select(:id).count end end
32. Monolithic Views
33. <% if @course.available? && @course.self_enrollment && @course.open_enrollment && (!@course_enrollment || !@course_enrollment.active?) && !session["role_course_#{@course.id}"] %> <%= render :partial => "join_course", :object => @course %> <% elsif @course_enrollment && @course_enrollment.self_enrolled && @course_enrollment.active? && (!session["role_course_#{@course.id}"]) %> <%= render :partial => "drop_course", :locals => { :course => @course, :enrollment => @course_enrollment } %> <% elsif temp_type = session["role_course_#{@course.id}"] %> <div> ... </div> <% end %>
34. Helpers
35. <% if can_join_course?(@course, @enrollment) %> <%= render :partial => "join_course", :object => @course %> <% elsif can_drop_course?(@course, @enrollment) %> <%= render :partial => "drop_course", :locals => { :course => @course, :enrollment => @course_enrollment } %> <% elsif temp_type = temp_permissions_to(@course) %> <div> ... </div> <% end %>
36. Presenters
37. module CourseHelper def can_join_course? course, enrollment course.available? && course.self_enrollment && course.open_enrollment && (!enrollment || !enrollment.active?) && !temp_permissions_to(course) end def can_drop_course? course, enrollment enrollment && enrollment.self_enrolled && enrollment.active? && !temp_permissions_to(course) end def temp_permissions_to course session["role_course_#{course.id}"] end end
38. <% if @presenter.can_join_course? %> <%= render :partial => "join_course", :object => @presenter.course %> <% elsif @presenter.can_drop_course? %> <%= render :partial => "drop_course", :locals => { :course => @presenter.course, :enrollment => @presenter.enrollment } %> <% elsif @presenter.temp_permissions %> <div> ... </div> <% end %>
39. class CourseShowPresenter # this is a ViewModel, really attr_accessor :course, :enrollment, :current_user, :session def can_join_course? @course.available? && @course.self_enrollment && @course.open_enrollment && (!@enrollment || !@enrollment.active?) && !temp_permissions end def can_drop_course? @enrollment && @enrollment.self_enrolled && @enrollment.active? && !temp_permissions end def temp_permissions @session["role_course_#{@course.id}"] end end
40. 1) Delarative
41. 2) Level of Abstraction
42. Monolithic Apps
43. Monolithic Apps
45. What is code?
47. “Underlying our approach to this subject is our conviction that “computer science” is not a science and that its significance has little to do with computers. ... The computer revolution is a revolution in the way we think and in the way we express what we think.
48. ... we want to establish the idea that a computer language is not just a way of getting a computer to perform operations but rather that it is a novel formal medium for expressing ideas about methodology. Thus, programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.
49. ... we believe that the essential material to be addressed by a subject at this level is not the syntax of particular programming-language constructs, nor clever algorithms for computing particular functions efficiently, nor even the mathematical analysis of algorithms and the foundations of computing, ...
50. but rather the techniques used to control the intellectual complexity of large software systems.”
51. but rather the techniques used to control the intellectual complexity of large software systems.”
52. Intellectual Complexity
53. Human Activity
56. “Often people, especially computer engineers, focus on the machines. They think, “By doing this, the machine will run faster. By doing this, the machine will run more effectively. By doing this, the machine will something something something.” They are focusing on machines...
57. But in fact we need to focus on humans, on how humans care about doing programming or operating the application of the machines. We are the masters. They are the slaves.” -Matz
58. The 80%?
62. Thank you!
64. HIRE ME!!!
65. HIRE ME!!! humanecode.com
66. HIRE ME!!! humanecode.com Questions?