Software economics: tradeoffs of decoupled softwre

Software EconomicsTradeoffs of Decoupled Software

Luis Artola@artolamola @buntplanet

Guillermo Gutiérrez@ggalmazor @buntplanet

0.1About technology, tradeoffs and business needs

Business needs

Value, Cost, Risk & Debt

Iterative & incremental

Change & evolution Dependencies

Economy

Economy is about making decisions on limited goods

You don’t need to invent anything. They have figured out

everything for you

Maybe you don’t make decisions about money

What about time? Time is money and it’s limited

and will let you use the same language from business

Developing an economic mindset will help you with your

decision making

Makes easier to achieve a common goal, a shared vision

Speaking the same language improves conversation and

trust

Economies of scale Cost of opportunityCost of acquisition

Marginal costTime to market

Return of InvestmentRiskDebt, loans, interest

Time Value of MoneyCash flowBalance sheetLiquidity

Throughput accountingCost accountingNet present value Real options

Business mindset

Value Cost

Economies of scale Cost of opportunityCost of acquisition

Marginal costTime to market

Return of InvestmentRiskDebt, loans, interest

Time Value of MoneyCash flowBalance sheetLiquidity

Throughput accountingCost accountingNet present value Real options

In this talk

Value Cost

Value, Cost, Risk

& DebtBusiness

needsIterative &

incrementalChange & evolution Dependencies

We are here to satisfy business needs

Early delivery of value,

What does business need?

ROIRisk reduction

Hypothesis validation Stakeholders shared vision

Early delivery of value, with the lowest possible cost,



keeping options open,


So that risk is reduced To face uncertainty with better odds


keeping options open, with debt under control


To avoid being unable to pay it off in the future

How are our coding strategies and practices aligned with

business needs?

We are biasedRefactoring a Good Thing™

Waterfall is a Bad Thing™

Business people don’t understand us™

Can you explain your coding strategies and practices in terms of value, cost, options, risk and

debt?

How to deal with technologyContext & Tradeoffs

Agile practice catalog

Refactoring to Patterns

Often forgetting to talk about when (context)

Software community is great writing articles about what & how

or how to combine other needs (tradeoffs)Often forgetting to talk about when (context)

Software community is great writing articles about what & how

How do we choose from the overwhelming list of things that

we should know?

How do we decide what’s the next thing to work on?

Are we professional about it?

You deal with technology applying context (when) and tradeoffs

(balance)

Value, Cost, Risk

& DebtBusiness

needsIterative &

incrementalChange & evolution Dependencies

Dependencies

Does business care about software dependencies?

Does business care about software dependencies?

No

Business focuses on visible costs

Invisible

Risk & DebtValue

CostQ

uant

ifiab

leU

nqua

ntifi

able

Visible

Cost is quantifiable and visible

Invisible

Risk & DebtValue

CostQ

uant

ifiab

leU

nqua

ntifi

able

Visible

Dependencies are risk and debt (difficult to see and quantify)

Dependencies be here

In an IT context, when you need to decrease the risk of delivering misunderstood needs (continuous feedback from stakeholders)

In a Start-up context, when you need to validate your hypothesis and discover your product

But costs are less important than value, risk or debt


Business needs


Change & evolution Dependencies

How do we deal with it?

Waterfall: Great for cost, if you forget about value, risk and

debt

time

RiskCost

Value

time

Cost

Value

time

Cost

Value

Value hits users for the first time

time

Risk

Iterative & incremental: The best possible option

time

Value hits users for the first time

time

Risk

Risk

Risk

Risk

Change & evolution

Business needs


Iterative & incremental Dependencies

Better value risk and debt, but we have to deal with the cost

of change

First vertical feature hits production

We mean by vertical as the minimum amount of software that adds value,

gets feedback (deals with uncertainty) and can be shipped to

users

We get feedback

First set of changes hits production

Second set of changes hits production

Third set of changes hits production

Cost of development tends to zero

Cost of Software is the cost of evolving software

DependenciesBusiness needs



Change & evolution

0.2Recap: from Software economics to code dependencies

To satisfy business needs, we need to be aware of

economic implications of our development strategy,

expressed in terms of value, cost, options, risk and debt.

This implies an iterative, incremental development strategy of vertical slices

This brings to the table new challenges

One is supporting constant code evolution

This brings to the table new challenges

Tightly coupled software is hard to change

Dependencies have big impact in code evolution

Cost of Software

Extended version of Kent Beck’s Implementation patterns, page 19

Cost of Software

Discovering


Cost of Software

DevelopingDiscovering


Cost of Software


Evolving


Cost of Software

Delivering


Evolving


Cost of Software

Bug fixingDelivering


Evolving


Cost of evolving software

Cost of understanding Cost of changing

Cost of changing

Abstractions

Composition

Dependencies

Other

Dependencies

Non code Codeschedule dependenciesteam dependencies

This talkCodeNon code

Context Boundaries Dependency Injection by constructorInjection Container / Service LocatorStatic abuse / Implicit dependencies

Declarative styleLaw of Demeter

Extended SOLIDSOLIDGetters and setters are evilLocal retention / Encapsulation

ModularityAnemic modelHexagonal architectureVertical & horizontal mental model

Test harness and test doubles Parallel change refactoringMikado method Self similarity principle

Inversion of Control

Tools & topics about code dependency management

Context Boundaries Dependency Injection by constructorInjection Container / Service LocatorStatic abuse / Implicit dependencies

Declarative styleLaw of Demeter

Extended SOLIDSOLIDGetters and setters are evilLocal retention / Encapsulation

ModularityAnemic modelHexagonal architectureVertical & horizontal mental model

Test harness and test doubles Parallel change refactoringMikado method Self similarity principle

Inversion of Control

This talk

We need a holistic approach

Abstraction - composition - dependencies

cost to understand - change - evolve

Warning

Dependencies are just a lens from which to analyze software

There are other lenses

Warning

2

Reusing is creating dependencies

Good code supports Options

Stop thinking in individual classes

1

3

1Reusing is creating dependencies

This is our project

Our project has one feature

We need to deliver a new feature

We need something similar to the already existing feature

We copy & paste some code from other feature

The cost of change is now x2 more expensive

We extract that piece of code to a common place

We have decreased the cost of change by half

Now all our features have a new dependency

New features can reuse that code

We achieve economies of scale

cost

of i

ntro

duci

ng

a ne

w fe

atur

e

cost

of i

ntro

duci

ng

a ne

w fe

atur

e

time

cost

of i

ntro

duci

ng

a ne

w fe

atur

e

time

reality

cost

of i

ntro

duci

ng

a ne

w fe

atur

e

time

reality

New dependency is created

cost

of i

ntro

duci

ng

a ne

w fe

atur

e

time

reality

New dependency is created theory

Economies of scale tell us that it should go down like this

cost

of i

ntro

duci

ng

a ne

w fe

atur

e

time

theory

reality

Reality tells us a different story

We have a dependency mess

cost

of i

ntro

duci

ng

a ne

w fe

atur

e

time

theory

reality

Our dependency mess pushes our costs up

cost

of i

ntro

duci

ng

a ne

w fe

atur

e

time

We need to watch dependencies and manage them

Dependencies get messy

cost

of i

ntro

duci

ng

a ne

w fe

atur

e

time


Dependencies get messy

Investment on dependency management

cost

of i

ntro

duci

ng

a ne

w fe

atur

e

time


Vertical-horizontal mindset

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Horizontal slice

We need some rules to allow dependencies to exist

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Horizontal slice

We allow dependencies on horizontal slices (common code)

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Horizontal slice

We forbid to depend on vertical slices

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Horizontal slice

We also forbid dependencies between vertical slices

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Horizontal slice

Self-similarity principle applies to vertical slices as well

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Vertical slice

Horizontal slice

We can completely remove a Vertical slice and nothing gets broken

Vertical slice

How do we balance low dependencies with code reuse?

Under which circumstances do we allow ourselves to break our rules?

2Good code supports business options

Business Options

time

Our schedule

Start working today

time

Deploy next month

Our schedule

time

Our progress

time

Our progress

Business needs a demo!

Option 1: Not giving options

Option 1: Not giving optionsNot professional

Option 2: Deploy something smaller

Option 2: Deploy something smallerCan you do that?

Interfaces and Inversion of Control

NotificationPort

Our appNotification Component

When you’re implementing someone’s Interface, you’re bound by its API and dependencies

uses

NotificationPort

Our appNotification Component

When you own an Interface, you make the rules

extends

When dealing with external dependencies, you can switch the place of the

Interfaces involved

Switching interfaces’ places is Inversion of Control

This gives you freedom for new implementations

This gives you freedom for new Options

time

Original schedule

time

Our design includes IoC

Original schedule

IoC

We buy an option

time

We deploy a smaller version for the demo

IoC

Original schedule

time

We finish our work and deploy the final version, which uses Amazon SMS

IoC

Original schedule

Extra cost

time

We’ve payed an extra cost but we’ve made it to the demo

IoC

Original schedule

Hexagonal Architecture

Hexagonal architecture applies IoC across your design

We focus on what we need and then we write code that complies

Our needs are defined in Ports and the implementations are called Adapters

JavaX

Mail

Amazon

SMS

Notifications

Port

Adapters are interchangeable

JavaX

Mail

Amazon

SMS

Notifications

Port

JavaX

MailAmazon

SMS

Adapters are interchangeable

Notifications

Port

Ports are interfaces declared on our app’s

package system

com.programania.coolapp.NotificationsPort

Adapters use foreign package systems

javax.mail.*


Adapters extend our app’s Ports

javax.mail.*


Internals depend on internals

javax.mail.*


By doing this, we’re inverting the control

(IoC) in our app

javax.mail.*

How do we choose what’s inside the Hexagon and what lies outside?

Your design needs to support Options but how do you balance it with Y.A.G.N.I.?

How are you going to defer decisions?

3Stop thinking in individual classes

Module, component or hexagon. They’re the same: a cluster of classes

Remember those extended S.O.L.I.D. principles

Inside a component, classes and dependencies can be unstable

Outside the component, dependencies are few and stable

Single Responsibility Principle of a class

Single Responsibility Principle of a class module

Class Responsibility and Collaborators (dependencies)

Class Component Responsibility and Collaborators (dependencies)

Class Level Testing

Class Module Level Testing

Insights and take aways

An economic mindset lets you stay in sync with business and make better decisions

Cost of software is the cost of evolving software

Principles are greatWhat will you do when they contradict?

Context is primordial(search for it when reading the next success story)

Tradeoffs are not staticThey are in constant tension through a project

Reusing is creating dependencies

IoC is about switching interfaces’ places

Stop thinking about individual classesStart considering cluster of classes, seek cohesion and

analyze dependencies

Thanks!

Software economics: tradeoffs of decoupled softwre

Software

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