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The first talk we will listen to is about abstractions. Ruby, like many other languages, abstracts a lot.
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Abstraction is the bread and butter of software development, but sometimes you need to peel off those layers to better understand and explain to others what is really happening.
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This understanding can help you refactor and get a clearer view of the code you are writing or working with.
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Therefore, I'm going to leave the stage to Ivan, whose talks have always been amazing. I'm definitely looking forward to this one. Welcome, Ivan! It's super nice to see you again.
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Good morning, everyone! I actually thought you were hosting every Ruby Day event because at all the ones I attended, you were hosting.
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Well, as I said, it’s my way to give back to the Ruby community. As I'm not a particularly focused person, I often find myself getting distracted. So, being here with deadlines and meeting awesome people helps me to stay consistent in my deliveries. Thank you so much for being here.
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Oh yeah, thank you! My talk is actually pre-recorded, so I'll be answering questions in the chat.
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For those in the chat, please write your questions there, and I'll ask them after the talk.
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Good morning, Ruby Day! I'm Ivan Nemytchenko, and this morning we're going to make things a little bit less abstract by expressing Ruby OOP through pictures.
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So, let's start. I've been doing Ruby since 2006, mostly freelancing and consulting these days. I used to call myself a complexity fighter but now prefer the term complexity organizer.
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I'm also a GitLab fan, having worked for GitLab, and I'm the person behind two websites, railshurts.com and painlessrails.com. I hail from Omsk, which is in Siberia.
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To clarify, Omsk may sound strange for many, but imagine being on a long flight and seeing Omsk as the only dot on your flight monitor — that’s where I'm from.
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These days, I live in Serbia, and it’s important to clarify that Serbia is not Siberia. Before moving, I didn't really understand the difference between these two places, but I do now.
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Today, we are going to talk about a different problem: although we might be talking about the same concepts, our understanding can differ significantly.
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We are discussing abstractions in programming; almost everything we work with is an abstraction built on top of other abstractions. This complexity can sometimes make it hard for us to understand each other.
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Another issue is seeing the big picture of our code, especially when projects are huge. When all we have is the code, it can be hard to discern the underlying ideas without deep diving into it.
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There have been a few attempts to address this issue, like CRC cards, which have been suggested to help, but they're not widely adopted or known.
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Then there’s UML, which can be useful but often causes eyes to glaze over. While it can help in theory, it's not liked by many.
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This was the problem statement, and now let's talk about what you can expect from this talk.
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First of all, I promise it will be fun! You will hopefully become better at learning, teaching, and explaining complicated concepts. The techniques you learn today might help you visualize the big picture in your projects.
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My talk has three parts: first, we will build a foundation; second, we will use this foundation to explain some advanced programming concepts; and finally, we will experiment with these techniques to see how they can be useful.
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This whole idea originated from a conversation at a conference in Russia where several educators were discussing how to teach junior developers.
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I presented a rhetorical question: Wouldn't it be great if we could illustrate concepts like dependency injection in a single picture that everyone could understand in the same way?
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Months later, while working with students on their OOP assignment to develop a smart kettle that boils water correctly and safely, I found that many students struggled to think in object-oriented terms.
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For students with procedural programming backgrounds, shifting to OOP can be challenging. To help these students, I used a method called the Art Soldiers method.
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Imagine you are a captain and you have a dozen soldiers at your command, each assigned a role. These soldiers are highly skilled, no matter what role you give them.
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An important constraint in this analogy is that the only way to interact with the soldier is to ask him to do something relevant to his role.
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Using this analogy, students gradually begin to understand the principles of OOP. They realize that the roles represent classes, and the requests made to the soldiers are methods.
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I often illustrate concepts with drawings, and when explaining, I create pictures representing the roles and methods to convey these ideas.
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For example, one of the classes could represent a heater while another might represent a temperature sensor.
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I thought about further enhancing these drawings by illustrating methods and arguments through arms and fingers. The fingers could represent arguments that the methods accept.
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I further refined this idea, visualizing how the arms could store arguments in the 'brain' as instance variables, which can later be reused in other methods.
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The results could also be visualized, where arguments enter fingers, processes happen inside, and results emerge.
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Private methods became an illustration of arms that couldn’t be shaken from the outside, highlighting that they can only be accessed internally.
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We can also illustrate exception handling processes, resulting in a comprehensive visual language that allows us to express basic anti-patterns.
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For example, too many arguments or methods can be represented through swollen arms, which can clearly highlight complex situations in our code.
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Through this method, we can effectively explain polymorphism; specifically, parametric polymorphism using our visual language.
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With the drawing, we can determine if objects exhibit polymorphism by checking if they have the same number of limbs and fingers, thus ensuring a consistent interface.
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Classes can be visualized as spawning platforms; when a lever is pulled, an object is instantiated.
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This analogy reveals that classes and objects have the same topology and structures represent how objects are instantiated.
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In addition, we can visually express execution flow, indicating that the sections of an arm or the steps in the arm icon represent methods being executed.
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The execution flow might resemble a Rube Goldberg machine where the alignment of all components depends on the argument interactions.
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Another concept we can discuss is dependencies; these are typically globally available classes reused in various places.
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These dependencies can be illustrated in the flow, and if they have side effects, it becomes important to visualize how those side effects interact.
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Dependency Injection can also be represented visually, emphasizing that dependencies should be passed as arguments instead of being hard-coded.
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In summary, this illustrated language helps to convey the ideas of dependency injection more effectively.
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Thanks to this visual approach, it becomes clearer how side effects can be isolated.
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We'll now look at how this visual language can be practically applied to a talk from Sandy Mats in 2018.
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While the exact nature of her talk isn't important, the main point is how the code evolves in complexity with new iterations.
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We illustrate the original version of the code and then highlight how new requirements continue to grow the complexity.
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As changes are made, we can depict how the complexity builds up visually so that you can see which iterations introduce excessive complexity.
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After the illustrations, we can show how Sandy refactors the code, allowing us to visualize the transition from complex to simpler constructs.
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This visual approach reveals the evolving state of the code and significantly aids in recognizing how complexity can build up through iterations.
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As a result, one can see the improvements that occur as the code is refactored, solidifying the understanding of underlying design principles.
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Now let’s discuss dynamic anti-patterns and how the visual approach helps identify these patterns as they emerge in your coding practices.
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For example, when you find yourself adding the same argument to multiple methods across various classes, that’s a sign of a pattern that needs addressing.
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Similarly, adding the same condition to different methods could signify a deeper problem, and this visual language points that out quickly.
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The resulting code post-refactoring showcases how those original complexities were transformed into simpler and more manageable constructs.
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What I find particularly interesting is that this should highlight essential complexities within your domain; it's about organizing rather than eliminating complexity.
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Thus, as we work through these models, we build annotations to represent code complexity, making it easier for documentation and communication.
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However, it's essential to remember that while models can be useful, they are simplifications and shouldn't be taken too literally.
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These visual tools help to share knowledge across teams and articulate complex concepts with clarity.
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So, if you have any questions, I’d be happy to jump in and answer them. You can also learn more about my work on my website, inm.a.t.
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You can find additional resources on how I approach coding with Ruby and making it simpler at painlessrail.com.
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Thank you, and I hope you have a good day at the conference.
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Bye, welcome back everyone! Ivan, this was amazing.
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I see that everyone has the same question: is there a way to generate these illustrations automatically?
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Well, let me share my screen and show you a few more slides.
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I actually have the same challenge with maintaining focus. The only reason a library exists that can generate these drawings is that an intern of mine took the initiative to implement it.
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There are links available where you can try playing with this code, and even though the drawings are basic, they can effectively highlight differences in code changes.
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You can even deploy a Rails app that you can connect to your repository to comment on pull requests with these illustrations.
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This visual representation is drawn from a method of showing multi-dimensional data through human-like mimics, which makes understanding easier.
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Our brains naturally gravitate towards human-like concepts, making it simpler to grasp the ideas behind the code when they are presented visually.
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Thank you so much! I believe you'll have a lot of new downloads for this tool.
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There’s a question in the chat about whether you've considered using this visual paradigm as a metric for software development.
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Good question! I’ve thought about various ways this idea can be applied, including mapping metrics to visualize development.
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For example, we could collect metrics from various existing Ruby gems and visualize them using this approach.
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The intent of this visualization is to allow comparison over time and see if your design is becoming simpler or more elegant.
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This visual representation can highlight design flaws or potential issues in your code.
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I encourage you to experiment with these illustrations and tools manually first and then explore any automated solutions later.
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Thank you so much for your time! I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference.
