Library Development - Stuck Between a Pod and a Jar File

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@zmarkan Zan Markan @zmarkan LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT stuck between a pod and a jar file

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@zmarkan ©Copyright @zmarkan 2017 About Me Developer for 8+ years Mostly Android, mobile >> See also: emoji overuser

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@zmarkan ©Copyright @zmarkan 2017 == DevTools company == Realtime == Sessions == making.pusher.com == Hiring in London

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@zmarkan Contents of this talk ● Libs 101 ● API Design ● Development & Testing ● Releasing ● Docs ...and more!

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@zmarkan We libs because... Avoid duplicating logic - Best Practice Sharing == Caring It’s a great way to enrich your We want to be paid

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@zmarkan Libraries are a collection of classes and methods that encapsulate common, shared functionality.

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@zmarkan Libs != Apps Libraries are NOT end products Smaller, more lightweight than apps Many x Many apps/lib ratio

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@zmarkan All about that Lib... What: Libraries, Frameworks, SDKs Type: General libs, UI Widgets, Serverside, Testing Access: Publicly vs Privately accessible Pricing: FOSS, Free to use vs Commercial API: DSL, Reactive, n other things...

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@zmarkan Product is about the User ● Developers (like you and I) ● Varied backgrounds, levels of experience ● User experience -> Developer experience

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@zmarkan the truth about developers Library users are Developers… … developers are very lazy, so... libraries should enable laziness.

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@zmarkan API

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@zmarkan The API is to a library what the USER INTERFACE is to an APP

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@zmarkan Things I mean by API Entry points Interaction points Data model Errors & Exceptions

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@zmarkan Entry points (where people first interact with your code) They allow you to instantiate and configure the library In “Code”: Constructors, Builders, Factories In UI: Widgets

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@zmarkan Construction in Code iOS: Named Parameters, Optionals Android: (Overloaded) Constructors, Builders Both: Sensible defaults >> Customisation

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@zmarkan Builder Poor person’s named args … and optional args Ensures constructor is passed correct values, and validates its state before building the class

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@zmarkan Methods & Models When in doubt - go S.O.L.I.D. Naming, Naming, Naming! Don’t surprise your users! (But you can delight them)

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@zmarkan (R)X-Factor Aysnc as a stream of events Allows chaining, and functional operations Support all the things: RxSwift, RxJava (even PHP!) More: Paco Estevez makes AWESOME Rx libs/articles/talks

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@zmarkan RX in brief eventStream .filter(//condition) .flatMap(//transformation) .subscribe(//handleSuccess, //handleError) Not shown: one million operators, threading, ...

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@zmarkan RX… but It’s still a power user feature Callbacks are still often preferred provide RX adapter as an optional extra?

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@zmarkan DSL-o-Matic 9000 Make your own little programming language… ...by inventing a syntax that works for you! Examples: Hamcrest, Rx, Kotlin Anko Techniques: Macros, Annotations, Operator overloading, Extension methods, ...

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@zmarkan When things go ● Let it crash! ● Early ● Often Ensure the error messaging is spot on Add links in error messages to explanations

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@zmarkan Anatomy of a “nice” Error Type: Illegal Input Message: Request unsuccessful, reason: malformed auth token Link: https://example.com/errors/123456 Explain things here!

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@zmarkan DEV & TEST

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@zmarkan Performance or Be wary of: ● Library size => App size ● Memory leaks ● Build times ● Needless dependencies

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@zmarkan API should be beautiful. Implementation should f*****g work.

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@zmarkan Testing it & Loving it The easy: Unit Tests The hard: Integration Tests with an app The smart: fooding More in: David Schreiber-Ranner’s talk from Droidcon Vienna 2016

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@zmarkan Tracking & Analysis Problem: No Google Analytics for libraries Track at the service level? Listen and talk to users fooding: Redux unless you’re Fabric

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@zmarkan

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@zmarkan (Semantic) Versioning 2.0 Major[.]Minor[.]Patch ● Major: Breaking changes ● Minor: New features ● Patch: Hotfixes Shouldn’t ever happen ● semver.org

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@zmarkan Releasing (how not to do it) ● Manually include the builds in your project (Bad idea in most cases) ● Include project as a Git submodule (Even worse idea in all cases)

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@zmarkan Releasing (the right way) : Carthage, CocoaPods Simple, git-based tools with some workspace-gen : Maven Central, JCenter, Jitpack Maven-based dependency managers ^^

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@zmarkan Releasing (privately) : Carthage, CocoaPods << Work with private git repos ^^ : Sonatype Nexus, Artifactory Pro, Jitpack ^^ hosted solutions, will cost you : Maven repo on S3, Artifactory OS ^^ free as in (just add server!)

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@zmarkan DOCS

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@zmarkan 50 shades of Docs ● Quick Start ● Sample apps ● Java/Swift Doc ● Wiki pages ● Yes, even tests! ● Mix & Match!

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@zmarkan Quickstart a.k.a. “Let me copypaste something”

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@zmarkan Sample code ● Should be small, confined apps ● … often alongside libraries in the same repo ● Should reflect your libraries’ features ● Can go in-depth for more advanced features

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@zmarkan JavaDoc & SwiftDoc ● Cheap to make ● Automagically generated ● (Just add comments!) ● Great in IDEs: Android Studio & XCode ● Host it alongside your other docs

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@zmarkan Libraries enable app developers to be lazy. Docs enable library developers to be lazy.

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@zmarkan The takeaways Libs 101 API design Development Releasing Support