SCNA 2009 - Self-Education and the Craftsman: Michael Feathers

Object Mentor

I wish I knew half of what this man knows.

• Algorithmic Complexity
• Covariance and contravariance, Liskov, Category theory
• Types
  • Not just language constructs
  • Relevant concepts even in dynamically typed languages
  • Sets - possible values
• Objects are Closures
• State Machines - forgotten, but great tool
• Regular Expressions & Automata - map to State Machines
• Turing Machines
• The Halting Problem - limits on verifiability
• Worse is Better
  • The best solution doesn't always win
  • Simpler implementation, compromise
• Redundancy Is Not Strength
  • Give same spec to two teams - correlation between bugs (study)
  • Quality is on us
• Security on Sand - Reflections on Trusting Trust (Thompson)
• Location Transparency is a myth
  • A Note on Distributed Computing
  • Distributed objects are subject to errors you don't have otherwise
• Objects Are Clay
  • Can emulate anything
  • Functional programming, rules engine, other paradigms
  • Pick best way to solve a problem

Books et al.

• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - online!
• Designing Object Systems: Object-Oriented Modelling with Syntropy
• Graphs: Theory and Algorithms
• The Dragon Book
• Discrete Mathematics (James Anderson)
• Introduction to the Theory of Computation (Sipser)