The rule of three suggests that if you encounter the same pattern for the third time in your code, you should refactor it into a reusable abstraction. The same thing applies in programming language theory. When you find that you are doing the same thing for the third time, it is probably a good idea to stop and think - is there a general pattern? Figure 1. Auto-completion list showing possible operations in The Gamma In my PhD thesis on context-aware computations, I did exactly this. When we realised th[...]

Back in June, I was in Paris for the NewCrafts conference to talk about the growing opacity of software systems. This was fun, partly because NewCrafts is a fantastic conference (you can already get your tickets for 2024!) and also partly because my talk (arguing against many established "good engineering" practices) was in many ways arguing for the exact opposite than one of the keynotes, leading to many interesting conversations. While in Paris, I also visited the famous Centre Pompidou. Perhaps to the d[...]

Architecture and urban planning have been a useful source of ideas for thinking about programming. I have written various blog posts and a paper Programming as Architecture, Design, and Urban Planning that argue why and explore some of those ideas. Like urban planning and architecture, the design of any interesting software system deals with complex problems that can rarely be analysed in full and with structures that will continue to evolve in unexpected ways after they are created. My most recent reading[...]

Figure 1. The Timeless Way of Building - Christopher Alexander Many programmers know the name of the architect Christopher Alexander for his work on design patterns that has been adapted into the world of programming. A lot of people know of the, sometimes ridiculed, patterns like strategy (functions!) or visitor (pattern matching!) and some have read the Gang of Four design patterns book that introduced them. A few people know of the Patterns of Software book by Richard P. Gabriel, which is a much more[...]

Figure 1. Virtually eliminates your coding load. FLOW-MATIC promotional brochure (1957) No-code is a hot new topic for programming startups. The idea is to develop a system that allows end-users to do the programming they need without the difficult task of writing code. There are no-code systems for building mobile apps, analysing data and many more. It is perhaps not a surprise that "eliminating programming load" is not as new idea as some people may think and there is an excellent blog series on no-co[...]