Generic or Specific? Making Sensible Software Design Decisions • Bert Jan Schrijver • GOTO 2023

This presentation was recorded at GOTO Amsterdam 2023. #GOTOcon #GOTOams
gotoams.nl
Bert Jan Schrijver - JavaOne Rockstar & Champion, NLJUG Leader & CTO at OpenValue ‪@bjschrijver‬
RESOURCES
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ABSTRACT
In software design and software architecture, we often face the question: should we build this generic or specific?
Usually, this is not an easy question to answer. The answer depends on a lot of different factors, including future factors you may not be aware of - yet.
In this talk, I’ll share my experiences and thought process as a developer and software architect with choosing between generic and specific solutions.
I’ll talk about generic vs specific design & architecture, both on a project level and organization level. We’ll look at sharing code/components between teams, inner source culture, monorepo’s, microservices, lifecycle management of generic components and strategic design as a tool to help decide.
After this talk, you’ll have practical insights that can help you to choose between generic and specific solutions yourself. [...]
TIMECODES
00:00 Intro
00:34 Outline
01:07 What is software design?
01:53 Design vs architecture
02:35 Definitions
12:38 Flexibility in software
15:44 Levels of generic vs specific
18:33 Tools to help decide
27:26 The cost of a generic solution
31:40 When & why to go generic
33:45 Examples why specific often is faster
39:29 Bonus: Sharing code in an organization
42:41 Summary
44:17 Outro
Download slides and read the full abstract here:
gotoams.nl/2023/sessions/2483
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Sam Newman • Monolith to Microservices • amzn.to/2Nml96E
Ronnie Mitra & Irakli Nadareishvili • Microservices: Up and Running • amzn.to/3c4HmmL
Sander Hoogendoorn • This is Agile • amzn.to/3DkDyfr
Gerald M. Weinberg • Becoming a Technical Leader • amzn.to/3xn87NG
Kent Beck • Test Driven Development • amzn.to/3RXopVg
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#SoftwareDesign #SoftwareArchitecture #Generic #Specific #Coupling #Flexibility #Adaptability #Microservices #Refactoring #Simplicity #BertJanSchrijver
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[@augustsbautra]

Nice talk! Covers all the bases, the design vs arch irrelevance, significance of decision expressed as cost of change, C4 model.

[@allanwind295]

It's clear and very well presented but I didn't learn anything new: prefer specific over generic unless you repeated yourself 3 times, widely needed functionality (which cause delay and conflict between teams when changes are needed), complex logic that benefit from specialization, and gains are bigger than cost (32:16).