The Limits of Modularity

This month, we're joined by Samuel E. Giddins for his talk titled 'The Limits of Modularity'. More information about the talk, Samuel, and the location can be found below.

The Limits of Modularity

I advocate for modular code every day -- I even work on a few dependency managers. But there's a point where modularity becomes too much, where it can strangle your development process and sap your will to code. When your dependencies have dependencies that have dependencies, none of which are ever used elsewhere, chances are you've paralyzed yourself. You've inverted sanity in code organization -- to make any change, you need to modify the bottom-most module, but the tests that might break are in your application. This is a very real situation, and it can spiral out of hand before you realize it. So, how can you avoid this nightmare? Stop abstracting and refactoring for its own sake, and think about where functionality belongs. Down the road, when you need to apply a bug fix, it should be easy to figure out which module requires the fix, and applying it shouldn't break every level up to your application. Modularity is a tool like any other -- it has its limits, but when respected, it can deliver on its promises.

About Samuel E. Giddins

Samuel is an iOS developer at Realm, working on building modern and elegant developer tools. As a core team member of CocoaPods, RestKit, and Jazzy, Samuel has spent the past couple of years building open source tools for other developers to enjoy. He will eventually graduate from the University of Chicago, once he decides that being a developer is far too practical.

Location Info

When you arrive, enter the Merchandise Mart through the main entrance and go to the elevators between the two security desks. Take the elevators to the 8th floor. These elevators will let you off in Braintree’s lobby. If you aren’t in Braintree’s lobby, you took the wrong elevators. Once there, a security guard will check for your name on the RSVP list and check your ID to let you in. Once inside Braintree, there will be signs pointing to where the meetup is taking place. WHEN RSVP’ING FOR THE MEETUP, PLEASE PROVIDE YOUR FULL NAME WHEN ASKED SO YOU DON’T HAVE ISSUES GETTING INTO BRAINTREE.