Welcome To Better Code

An adventure in software engineering
Adobe Software Technology Lab  |  https://stlab.cc

About Your Hosts

Dave Abrahams

Sean Parent

CVs

WRITEME: about our backgrounds

%speaker

We hope this course/book is generally applicable, but of course we come from a set of experiences that will color what we think is important. We’ve attempted to be responsible for our biases, but in full disclosure, here they are.

Definitions  |  Engineering, n

The creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property.

—American Engineers’ Council for Professional Development (per wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering)

%speaker

This is a course about engineering. So what do we mean by that?

• Consulting definitions very useful; we will do that a lot.
• Wordy definition, but some standout features:
  • it’s a creative process
  • Based on scientific principles
  • to create predictable results
  • subject to real-world constraints (functionality, economics, safety, shipping dates, cost, Available tooling/hardware, laws of physics…)
  • correctness is provisional. The fact that the computer might get struck by lightning doesn’t make your code unreliable. “specific:” the provisions are specified

As engineers we have to juggle all of this and make a set of informed tradeoffs to find the best solution. Real-world constraints mean engineers will always confront trade-offs, so much so that making these trade-offs could be said to be the essence of the activity.

Definitions  |  Engineering, n

The creative application of scientific principles to design or develop discover structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property.

—American Engineers’ Council for Professional Development (per wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering)

Making informed tradeoffs to produce the best design or artifact possible given a set of constraints.

—Sean

%speaker

One thing we both believe is that in grappling with problems, if you apply yourself, you can discover deep platonic truths. This course/book is about finding deep truths about programming.

About the artist

The End