Object-oriented code was conceived as message-passing between objects. Service-oriented architecture emphasizes delegation to another system. The entire web is a whole bunch of requests flying around. There is one clear way to be efficient about this: stop waiting for results. When we’re writing imperative code, we want to write the operations in the order they … Read moreBring the data to the code, or the code to the data?
Michael Feathers has a great blog post up today about how object-oriented and functional programming styles are suited to different portions of an application. Specifically, the object-oriented style fits the high-level application components. The original intention of OO was for objects to pass messages to each other, which is suited to a SOA style and … Read moreThe confluence of FP and OO
It is often said that the developer should understand one level deeper than she’s working. If she’s writing Java, she should know how the JVM works. If he’s using a container, he should know conceptually what’s going on inside the container. This statement is true for more than just runtimes and frameworks, but all the … Read moreOne level deeper
Say you’re working along on a branch (let’s say master), and suddenly you realize that this task is harder than you thought. You wish you had started a branch for this feature, back before you began it. Now you need to work on a bug instead, so you’ve got to put these changes away — … Read moreGit: retroactive branching
Git gives us all this amazing power to control what we commit and when. We can even go back and modify commits to rewrite history. This power is dangerous. What’s the point of having it? The reason is that our version control history tells a story of our project. It is up to us what … Read moreVCS as Biographer
There’s an age-old debate about whether static methods are the devil. They make unit testing so hard! Utility methods are easier to use when they’re static. Take for instance a simple method to pull the value of a cookie off an HttpServletRequest. Since this is Java, we can’t put the method on the HttpServletRequest class. … Read moreStatic Methods Are Your Friend
We love to make abstractions. Human beings understand things in terms of abstractions, especially in terms of metaphors and similes. When we encounter something new, we find ways that it is like something similar. Eric Evans makes some great points about this in Software Is (Not) Like That, an article on DDD from way back … Read moreAbstractions in methodologies
Strongly-typed, type-inferred languages like F#, Scala, and Haskell make Java feel like its static typing system is half-assed. This is not Java’s fault entirely; it’s the way we use it. Say we have a domain class like public class User { public User(String firstName, String lastName, String email, long balanceInDollars) {}… } I’m in agreement … Read moreStrong Typing in Java: a religious argument
If you’re a Java programmer who’s itching to switch to a newer, more exciting language, then remember we can still improve the paradigms we’re using in the language we get paid to use. Erik Onnen’s video on InfoQ, Java.next, talks about why Java is still the language best-suited to the JVM, and how we can … Read moreVideo review: Java.next
“Programmers don’t need an office. They don’t need infrastructure. They don’t need staff. They don’t need anyone to tell them what to do. They hardly even need money. They can just make things. A programmer is a human self-contained factory that can manufacture stuff that’s worth money. That is some insanely powerful stuff!” — Tess … Read moreWhy programming is awesome