The hottest Software Design Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

The Open/Closed/Open Principle

Software Design: Tidy First? • 1565 implied HN points • 12 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Software Design Isolation Experimentation
  1. In software design, there are ordinary phases (small changes) and revolutionary phases (fundamental changes) - understanding when each is needed is important.
  2. Revolutionary design violates the open/closed principle by requiring new elements and relationships that don't fit with the existing design.
  3. Revolutionary changes in design require different values and care compared to ordinary design - they are essential for accommodating new types of features.

Beyond the Duolingo Dilemma: Unlocking Fluency through Context

primalkarma’s Substack • 2 HN points • 22 Apr 24
🚌 Education Language Learning Software Design
  1. Duolingo is good for starting a new language and building vocabulary, but it falls short in providing fluency due to lack of contextual learning.
  2. Children learn languages by immersing in contextual environments, showing the importance of context in vocabulary acquisition and articulation.
  3. Software design and language articulation have similarities, and a shift towards an object-oriented model in language learning software could enhance fluency by providing a contextual environment.
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"Why? Because the thread count was too low, you idiot."

Sucks to Suck • 1002 implied HN points • 09 Jul 23
🕹 Technology Software Design Social Platforms Algorithm Competition
  1. The rise of new social media platforms like Threads could challenge existing giants like Twitter.
  2. The shift towards subscription revenue models might be essential for social media platforms like Twitter.
  3. Consumers are seeking stability and calm in online platforms, which could impact the future dynamics of social media.

How to save your systems from collapsing- Graceful Degradation [Technique Tuesdays]

Technology Made Simple • 99 implied HN points • 03 May 23
🕹 Technology Software Design Web Development Software Engineering AI
  1. Graceful Degradation is a design principle that ensures systems maintain limited functionality even when parts are rendered inoperative.
  2. Implement the 80-20 principle while integrating Graceful Degradation to focus on backing up critical components and keeping systems active.
  3. Combine Progressive Enhancement with Graceful Degradation to provide essential content to all users while delivering the best possible experience to modern browsers.

How to Design Software — Report Generators

Joseph Gefroh • 0 implied HN points • 09 Aug 21
🕹 Technology Software Design
  1. Developers often face challenges with creating reports in a way that handles various requests efficiently.
  2. Every report consists of data records, data values, labels, and format, which are essential components to consider.
  3. The steps to generate a report involve setting up parameters, fetching records, mapping fields, converting records into report entries, and sending back the report to the user.

How to Design Software — Plugin Systems

Joseph Gefroh • 0 implied HN points • 31 Jan 21
🕹 Technology Software Design
  1. Plugins allow you to extend the functionality of a program by writing subprograms that can modify or add to its behavior.
  2. To create a plugin system, the main program needs to be designed to support plugins, enabling the addition of various functionalities.
  3. Key components of a basic plugin system include the main program that needs enhancement and the hook that triggers the execution of additional code.

How to Design Software — Dynamic Heatmaps (Chloropeths)

Joseph Gefroh • 0 implied HN points • 26 Jul 20
🕹 Technology Software Design Web Development Coding
  1. Building a dynamic heatmap for personal projects can be cost-effective and rewarding instead of purchasing licenses from charting companies.
  2. Heatmaps, also known as chloropeths, involve color-coding sections of a map based on a specific scale.
  3. Creating a customized heatmap requires a map SVG, coding to manipulate the map with JavaScript, and organizing data for efficient color application.

How to Design Software — Feature Flags

Joseph Gefroh • 0 implied HN points • 14 Jul 20
🕹 Technology Software Design Performance
  1. Separating deploys from releases can help reduce risk and streamline the development process by allowing code to be sent to production without being immediately visible to users.
  2. Feature flags are a useful tool for enabling or disabling features in software based on specific conditions, and they should not be used for account-specific authorization checks.
  3. When transitioning to a new feature flag system, focusing on separating reads and writes can provide a smoother migration process and reduce the risk of errors or discrepancies between different systems.

How to Design Software — Rules Engines

Joseph Gefroh • 0 implied HN points • 09 Jul 20
🕹 Technology Software Design Engineering Systems Coding
  1. Rules engines can help prevent constant interruptions in engineering work by allowing other departments to make changes without engineer involvement
  2. Rules engines are systems that execute actions based on conditions that can be configured during runtime, making them dynamic and adaptable
  3. Using rules engines can reduce the fragility of concrete coding implementations, enabling easier modifications as business requirements evolve

How to Design Software — Image Uploaders

Joseph Gefroh • 0 implied HN points • 19 Oct 19
🕹 Technology Software Design Image Processing Scalability Security
  1. When designing a system for image uploading, it's important to consider technical concerns such as displaying, authorizing, validating, processing, storing, and associating the images.
  2. Tradeoffs to think about include scaling to handle large uploads efficiently, ensuring security to prevent vulnerabilities, managing authorization based on business logic, and maintaining consistency in the image uploading workflow.
  3. A well-designed image uploading system should support creating and using various image variants, offloading processing to separate services, ensuring consistent growth across subsystems, and establishing clear architectural boundaries for scalability.

How to Design Software — Tags and Groups

Joseph Gefroh • 0 implied HN points • 22 Dec 16
🕹 Technology Software Design Database Management
  1. When designing software, consider implementing a tagging system for ordering, filtering, grouping, and organizing records based on properties.
  2. Using comma-separated strings in a single database column for tags is simple but leads to difficulties in querying, formatting errors, and length limitations.
  3. Storing tags in separate columns might seem organized, but it can complicate querying and checking for the existence of tags across multiple columns.

🎓 Work on projects you aspire towards; Design Pattern of the Day: Adapter

Become a Senior Engineer • 0 implied HN points • 29 Feb 24
🕹 Technology Programming Development Software Design Tech news Career development
  1. Focus on working on projects that inspire you and are beyond your current skill set to grow faster and gain more experience.
  2. The Adapter design pattern in programming acts as a bridge between incompatible interfaces, allowing for cleaner code, quicker development, and flexibility.
  3. To excel in software development, we should strive to work on challenging tasks, be open to learning from others, and not fear pushing beyond our comfort zones.

Test-driven data engineering

Reflective Software Engineering • 0 implied HN points • 30 Dec 23
🕹 Technology Data Engineering Software Design Refactoring
  1. Test-driven development (TDD) is a valuable tool for ensuring software quality and driving great software design.
  2. Testing data integrations and clients, especially in complex data platforms, can be challenging due to less control over underlying databases. Strategies like mocking HTTP interactions can help in testing.
  3. Separating concerns and creating small, testable units of code can enhance confidence in the system, reduce fear of regression, and improve overall software quality.

How to Design Software — Monitoring Systems

Joseph Gefroh • 0 implied HN points • 06 Feb 22
🕹 Technology Software Design Logic
  1. Monitoring systems are designed to determine whether something is working or not, and the concept of what is considered "working" can vary based on parameters defined by the system operators.
  2. When designing a monitoring system, it's crucial to understand what is being monitored and to keep the definition of "working" arbitrary to prevent limitations.
  3. A monitoring system consists of components like the Monitor, which contains the logic for monitoring and responding to the status of the system being observed.