Domain Modeling Made Functional - Scott Wlaschin

I adore Scott Wlaschin's work [0] -- that's where I picked up on the acronym, BLOBS! F# is super cool, I agree. [0] ▶ this video

I haven't worked with Qt so I don't know how the API looks, But on a complex app, to see "dirty bitflags", "intermediate values", "redrew the UI in the middle of mutating document state", I feel what you feel, and I want to share what helps me and my team overcome this kind of complexity. This happened a few years ago to my team. We alleviated this with several solutions. The most effective solutions is to 1.) separate UI logic/compositive component from UI visual/appearance component, 2.) separate UI component from actors. 1.) Separating logic from visual helps developers define problems separately, especially those around the required states, step-functions, and lifecycle. We made this separation because of three things: 1.) We observed that our programmers are simply divided into these two categories, 2.) The dependencies of these two sets of components are simply different (e.g. logic --depends-on-> actors and ownership/lifetime management modules, while visuals depends on DOM, rendering, setting up callbacks), 3.) It is actually good to have a high cohesion between UI and logic modules. You may want to use the same UI for a slightly different logic, and vice versa. 2.) Separating UI component from actors helps a lot with decoupling state changes and re-rendering, and actually gives developer a chance to separate/abstract/generalize concerns when things have gotten too complex to be written in a UI component. Actors is what I call any kinds of data that can act, have thei

Take something like the design discipline Scott Wlaschin describes in this talk "Domain Modeling Made Functional"[1]. Combine it with a catalog of standard models like David Hay's "Data Model Patterns: A Metadata Map"[2] which is like a Pattern Language for data models combined with a catalog covering most (enterprise) needs. Specify the binary formats with Erlang "bit syntax"[3]. Eh? [1] ▶ this video [2] link [3] link

In re: Haskell's goodness or badness, compare and contrast with, say, PHP (crap language with wild success.) Or Prolog (a stately Elven language with deep but obscure success.) Haskell is what it is. In re: types and data, FP is good for that. See e.g. "Domain Modeling Made Functional" by Scott Wlaschin ( ▶ this video ) it's about F# but the concepts apply cross-language. In re: FP PLs "done right" I submit Elm lang. I've been using Elm recently and it gets the job done. It's weird though: on the one hand, as a experienced professional it feels like a toy. The error messages feel almost insulting, like I'm being patronized. On the other hand, once I got over that (silly) reaction, they're awesome. Changing code is a breeze, because Elm leverages the crap out of the type system, and the structure of the code and runtime prevent whole vast categories of errors. Combine that with the sort of Domain-Driven development that Wlaschin is talking about and "baby, you got a stew going!"

I like this talk: "Domain Modeling Made Functional" by Scott Wlaschin ▶ this video He's working in F# but the concepts map. There's a fascinating book "Data Model Patterns: A Metadata Map" by David C. Hay that's pretty much a Pattern Language or catalog for data models. You can just implement the subset of Hay's patterns that make sense for your application.

Yep! This talk captures it pretty darn well: ▶ this video Besides that, the compiler becomes a partner in coding. - Refactoring things is no longer something I avoid, because the compiler will point out any unexpected places that interact with a given piece of code. - I can code for an hour without loading the app, and be reasonably certain that the code I'm writing will be more or less be correct. Overall, I feel like the compiler does the double-checking and second-guessing that I was always doing in the back of my head, which gives some peace of mind and frees me up to focus on the actual task.

Scott Wlaschin, author of F# for Fun and Profit, has an excellent talk on using F# (an ML language) for domain driven design and business development: ▶ this video

If anyone is looking for a really eye-opening video take a look at that this. "Domain Modeling Made Functional" It's applying Functional Programming to plain old Enterprise line of business apps in F#. The author argues why it's so much simpler, and simply walks through an example with cases. It's hard not to be persuaded. It leaves behind all of the lofty crazy maths you see in a lot of presentations of FP, and just shows how it's a simpler technique to solve real world problems. Domain Modeling Made Functional - ▶ this video (Watch on 1.25x speed) It's really impressive, and also surprising why more people promoting FP don't show it's tangible benefits and simplicity vs. the theoretical/abstract way it's usually presented. It's also a great introduction to 'Domain Driven Design' and data modeling regardless of the language you use.

The "F# for fun and profit" site by Scott Wlaschin is a great jumping-off point: link I discovered it when I was reading a lot about domain driven design, and I stumbled upon a talk by the author that kind of blew my mind: "Domain Modeling Made Functional" ▶ this video