Architecture on Thomas Cothran

What do I want from a codebase?

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Carson Gross’ “Codin’ Dirty” essay is designed to provoke controversy. Although I will critique the essay, I want to make it clear that I am (on this Thanksgiving eve) grateful for Carson Gross’s work.

Gross writes:

I’m … not trying to convince you to code dirty with this essay. Rather, I want to show that it is possible to write reasonably successful software this way and, I hope, offer some balance around software methodology discussions.

Top-Down Imperative Clojure Architectures

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When I first became interested in functional programming, a more experienced engineer told me: “you know functional programming doesn’t really amount to much more than procedural programming.” As I insisted on the benefits of map, filter and reduce, he simply shook his head. “You’re thinking in the small. Go look at a large real-world application.”

It took some time for me to see what he meant. My preferred language, Clojure, is a functional language. But too often it is used to build top-down, imperative applications. This negates the value proposition of functional programming: isolating side effects, local reasoning, and system composition.

Brittle Clojure: Creating Legacy Clojure Systems

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Avoid writing brittle Clojure with tactics for flexibility and robustness.