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Software Engineering Daily

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Software Daily: The world through the lens of software.

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#1236
Sep 19, 2019 · 47 min
Open Source Ecosystem with Dirk Hohndel
Open source software is very new. Open source has existed for less than 30-40 years, depending on who you ask. The idea of open source was popularized by Linux, and open source software started to get heavily commercialized in the 1990s. By the early 2000s, open source was used by nearly every large software company. In recent years, most of the new databases, web frameworks, user interface libraries, and other software primitives are being built in the open. Dirk Hohndel is VP and chief open source officer at VMware, where he works on strategies around Linux, containers, Kubernetes, and other open source software. Dirk joins the show to talk about his long history with open source and the current state of the open source ecosystem.
#1235
Sep 18, 2019 · 54 min
Distributed Databases with Aly Cabral
Modern databases consist of multiple servers that host the data in a distributed fashion. Using multiple servers allows a database to be resilient to the failure of any one database node, because copies of the data are shared to other servers. A multi-node setup also lets the database grow beyond the size of data that could be hosted on a single node. Although a distributed database gains in scalability and resiliency, a database that runs across multiple nodes has a variety of problems that are not faced by a database running on a single node. Every operation with a distributed database becomes more complex than the single-node database. For example, if you make a query to your distributed database, you might not be able to rely on the answer that you get from a single database node, because the other database nodes might have been involved in transactions that have not propagated to all of the nodes. Aly Cabral is a lead product manager at MongoDB and co-author of a paper on causal consistency in MongoDB. Aly joins the show to discuss the engineering of distributed databases and her experience architecting MongoDB. Full disclosure: MongoDB is a sponsor of Software Engineering Daily.
#1234
Sep 17, 2019 · 55 min
Kafka Applications with Tim Berglund
Ever since Apache Kafka was open sourced from LinkedIn, it has been used to solve a wide variety of problems in distributed systems and data engineering. Kafka is a distributed messaging queue that is used by developers to publish messages and subscribe to topics with a certain message type. Kafka allows information to flow throughout a company such that multiple systems can consume the messages from a single sender. In previous shows, we have covered design patterns within Kafka, Kafka streams, event sourcing with Kafka, and many other subjects relating to the technology. Kafka is broadly useful, and new strategies for using Kafka continue to emerge as the open source project develops new functionality and becomes a platform for data applications. In today’s episode, Tim Berglund returns to Software Engineering Daily for a discussion of how applications are built today using Kafka–including systems that are undergoing a refactoring, data engineering applications, and systems with a large number of communicating services. If you are interested in learning more about how companies are using Kafka, the Kafka Summit in San Francisco is September 30th – October 1st. Companies like LinkedIn, Uber, and Netflix will be talking about how they use Kafka. Full disclosure: Confluent (the company where Tim works) is a sponsor of Software Engineering Daily.
#1233
Sep 16, 2019 · 50 min
Okta Engineering with Hector Aguilar
A new employee at a software company needs access to a variety of tools. In order to get started working, the employee might need Slack, email, Google Docs, and Amazon Web Services, and all of these require an account with a username and password. Setting up all of these accounts can be time consuming, because the company needs to go into their admin portal and create the accounts. The accounts need to have the right security policies and configuration settings. And when the employee leaves the company, all of these accounts need to be shut down. Okta is a company that builds identity and access management software, such as an “SSO (single-sign on)” tool that allows users to log into all of these different types of accounts using only an Okta login. Okta was started in 2009 and has grown steadily since then, going public in 2017. Hector Aguilar is the president of technology at Okta and he joins the show to talk about the software stack of Okta and how the company has evolved over time as it has become a core infrastructure provider and hired a large engineering team.
#1232
Sep 13, 2019 · 52 min
Cloud-Native Applications with Cornelia Davis
Amazon Web Services first came out in 2006. It took several years before the software industry realized that cloud computing was a transformative piece of technology. Initially, the common perspective around cloud computing was that it was a useful tool for startups, but would not be a smart option for large, established businesses. Cloud computing was not considered economical nor secure. Today, that has changed. Every company that writes software is figuring out how to utilize the cloud. Software companies with on-prem servers are migrating old applications to the cloud, and most companies that have started in the last decade do not even have physical servers. Applications that are started on the cloud are referred to as “cloud-native.” The architecture of cloud-native applications is a newer topic of discussion, and some software patterns that became established in the pre-cloud era make less sense today. Cornelia Davis is VP of technology at Pivotal and the author of Cloud Native Patterns, a book about developing applications in the distributed, virtual world of the cloud. Cornelia was previously on the show to discuss Cloud Foundry. In today’s episode, our conversation centers on her book, and her perspective on the emerging patterns of cloud native software.
#1231
Sep 12, 2019 · 54 min
Talking Python with Michael Kennedy
Python is one of the most popular programming languages in the software world. After working with Python and developing a love for the language, Michael Kennedy started to wonder why there was not a high quality podcast dedicated to covering the community and new technologies of the Python ecosystem. Michael started Talk Python To Me as a podcast with the goal of telling stories from the world of Python. Today, Talk Python To Me is the most popular podcast dedicated to Python and related technologies. Subjects on the podcast include web frameworks, compilers, career development, and cloud services. One of the more recent developments in the world of Python is the prevalence of data science, which Michael also covers in great detail. Michael has also spun up a second podcast called Python Bytes, which offers timely updates to the Python community. Michael joins the show to share his thoughts on several topics related to Python, including compilers, data science workflows, and web frameworks. Michael also gives his perspective on the world of software podcasting, which he has been doing for more than four years.
#1230
Sep 11, 2019 · 54 min
MongoDB Data Platform with Andrew Davidson
A new software application has simple requirements for a database. The database needs to be written to and read from. The database fulfills simple needs such as storing user information and providing the application frontend with the necessary data to render a simple webpage of financial transactions or blog posts. As an application becomes successful, the database grows in size. The complexity of queries increases, requiring more sophisticated logic in order to maintain performance. New databases need to be added to the overall system, as users begin to have demands for advanced features such as search, or analytics. Over time, the requirements for a database expand into a need for a data platform. A data platform might include multiple databases such as a NoSQL database, a relational database, a data warehouse, and a search index. The relationships between these different databases can vary in terms of consistency requirements, latency, and scalability. Andrew Davidson is the Director of Cloud Products at MongoDB. In a previous episode, Andrew discussed the tradeoffs of scaling databases while maintaining high performance indexing. Andrew returns to the show to discuss the emerging subject of “data platform.” As a growing number of companies have data requirements beyond that of a simple transactional database, Andrew’s work has increasingly involved figuring out the best ways for developers to adapt those transactional systems to providing a wider set of functionality. Full disclosure: MongoDB is a sponsor of Software Engineering Daily.
#1228
Sep 10, 2019 · 53 min
Google Spanner with Deepti Srivastava
Spanner is a globally distributed, transactionally consistent database. Spanner initially emerged as a paper that came out of Google in 2012. Around this time, database scalability was difficult to solve, even for Google. The Spanner paper offered some breakthroughs in distributed systems which allowed Google to take some of the learnings from BigTable’s eventual consistency and construct a novel system that was transactionally consistent. Deepti Srivastava has worked on Spanner for more than six years. When she initially started working on Spanner, she was involved in the internally facing Spanner system that Google engineers used to spin up instances of the database. Today, she works as program manager for Cloud Spanner, a product within Google Cloud. Deepti joins the show to describe the breakthroughs of Spanner, and how her work has evolved since the product has gone from an internal system to an externally facing piece of cloud infrastructure.
#1227
Sep 9, 2019 · 52 min
Open Source Policy with Bruce Perens
Open source plays a key role in today’s world of technology businesses. Today, the impact of open source seems obvious. From Kubernetes to distributed databases to cloud providers, so much of our software is powered by open source. But it was not always this way. Bruce Perens was one of the earliest figures in the world of open source. He collaborated with Eric S. Raymond, the author of Cathedral and the Bazaar. He developed a differing belief set from Richard Stallman, who was another foundational advocate of open source. Bruce worked as an engineer at Pixar from 1987 to the year 2000. Bruce joins the show to give a history of open source and his experience in the software industry.
#1225
Sep 6, 2019 · 52 min
Repl.it: Browser Coding with Amjad Masad
The browser has become the central application of the consumer operating system. Every piece of client software, from email to document management, has become usable through the browser. Even modern desktop software such as Slack is built using Electron, a tool for building client applications that essentially run inside of a browser without an address bar. One activity that still takes place largely outside of the browser is the process of writing and deploying code. A developer often uses an IDE such as Eclipse to write their code, then switches over to a terminal where they can build and deploy their code to a remote server running in the cloud. For a developer who has been writing code for a long time, this process feels completely intuitive. But for a new developer, it can be totally disorienting. New developers sometimes have trouble understanding the difference between a local and remote environment, or how to use repository management software like Git. This is in addition to all the other problems a new developer might be dealing with, such as language installation, syntax, and package management. Repl.it is a browser-based coding environment, compute engine, and collaborative workspace. Repl.it has found significant traction among new programmers who begin their programming journey within Repl.it and then stay in the environment, even as their applications become more richly featured and complicated. Repl.it is an amazing piece of software, and the story behind it is remarkable. Amjad Masad had the idea for Repl.it many years before he started the company for it, but he needed to first build up the money and confidence in order to go after the business with full force. Amjad joins the show to talk about his long journey towards building Repl.it, and to discuss the thriving Repl.it platform in its current form.
#1224
Sep 5, 2019 · 59 min
Monday: Business Management Software with Eran Zinman
Modern software is built with cloud services, APIs, and other high level tools. Technical software development is moving beyond the realm of writing code. Individuals who do not have a background in computer science or programming can create increasingly complex tools. Higher level APIs include Twilio for managing phone communications, and Stripe for managing financial workflows. Platforms such as Shopify can be used as the core system for building an e-commerce business. Low-code tools such as Wix can be used for building web sites. Monday.com was started in 2012 with the goal of making software for managing business workflows. Business workflows link together different teams and processes within a company. Monday allows non-engineers to automate workflows that are traditionally automated by engineers. For example, Monday can be used to build workflows that link together SalesForce and Twilio, or to trigger actions in MailChimp based on how a user interacted with a Shopify web site. One of the biggest developing trends in technology is how non-engineers are becoming empowered to have more impact within an organization. The advances in these kinds of tools present us with an opportunity to rethink team structures, and invent entirely new roles for a software company. Eran Zinman is the CTO and co-founder of Monday.com and he joins the show to describe the vision for Monday and how the product fits into the changing enterprise software trends around APIs and “low code” tools. Monday has grown exponentially over the last 7 years, with the most recent growth curve looking almost vertical. Eran’s experience scaling the product and improving performance makes for excellent storytelling. Full disclosure: Monday is a sponsor of Software Engineering Daily.
#1223
Sep 4, 2019 · 49 min
Cassandra Business with Jonathan Ellis
Cassandra was initially released in 2008 as a project out of Facebook. Cassandra offered an open source solution to database scalability issues that were being tackled internally by large companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook. 2008 was a golden age of new infrastructure, with systems such as Hadoop and Kafka gaining traction around the same time. Jonathan Ellis started working with Cassandra, and became intrigued by the system. With the help of investors, Jonathan began working on a company based around Cassandra called Datastax. Today, Datastax is a company with more than 450 employees and a large valuation. Jonathan joins the show to discuss his experience working with Cassandra, and his reflections on the becoming an entrepreneurial founder of a highly successful database company. There is a wealth of useful knowledge for both software engineers and entrepreneurs in this episode.
#1222
Sep 3, 2019 · 45 min
DevOps at Delta Air Lines with Jasmine James
Airlines have always had an emphasis on new technology. Over the years, airlines have needed to develop more and more software. Digital transformation is causing every large company to adopt the tools and practices of software companies, and that includes Delta Airlines. Delta Airlines has existed for more than 90 years. Over that period of time, the company has developed new systems in every generation of software, from the days of mainframe computers to a modern Java-based backend. When the DevOps movement started to take shape, Delta Airlines started to take a more focused approach on continuous integration, version control, and an organizational structure that removed silos between teams. Jasmine James is a manager at Delta Airlines where she focuses on improving the software practices of the company. She joins the show to talk through the process of changing the developer culture within Delta, as well as what it is like to build software for an airline. Jasmine is speaking at GitLab Commit in Brooklyn on September 17, 2019, and GitLab is a sponsor of Software Engineering Daily, so if you are thinking about attending GitLab Commit, you can go to softwareengineeringdaily.com/commit and enter code COMMITSED to save 30% on your ticket, while also supporting Software Engineering Daily.
#1221
Aug 30, 2019 · 1 hr 1 min
Facebook Parse Acquisition (Part 2) with Ilya Sukhar
Ilya Sukhar founded Parse in 2011 to make cloud services for mobile developers. Parse was a newer kind of cloud provider called “backend-as-a-service”, built to simplify the complexities of Amazon Web Services and the complexities of the mobile ecosystem. During this time, Facebook was in the middle of its shift toward becoming a mobile application company. Ads on the smartphone were not yet a proven business model. Facebook was exploring other business lines, and decided to purchase Parse for $85 million, with the intention of building a cloud developer platform. Shortly after the acquisition, Facebook’s mobile ads business started to see considerable success. With the mobile ads business finding traction, Facebook shifted all available resources towards supporting that business model. In 2017, Parse was shut down. Ilya joins the show to give his experience starting Parse, selling the company to Facebook, and then seeing the company he had built get shut down as it became an unfortunate casualty of Facebook’s advertising success. We talked a lot about the experience of building a backend-as-a-service company, as well as what makes Facebook special as an organization, and how the success of Facebook’s mobile business happened to coincide with the Parse acquisition.
#1220
Aug 29, 2019 · 54 min
Facebook Parse Acquisition (Part 1) with Charity Majors
Parse was a backend-as-a-service company that started in 2011 with the initial focus of making the cloud easier to use for mobile developers. Parse had several novel engineering challenges. In 2011, it was not easy to build on top of AWS, nor was it easy to build within the young mobile ecosystem. Charity Majors was an early engineer at Parse, and stayed with the company through its acquisition by Facebook. Charity joins the show to discuss her experience at Parse and her reflections on being part of Facebook after the acquisition. Parse was shut down in 2017, which was a disappointing outcome for Charity. Charity currently works as the CTO of Honeycomb. In a previous episode, Charity gave some background on her career in software, as well as her perspective on modern problems in observability and DevOps. In this episode, Charity tells the story of joining Parse, working through novel engineering problems, and the feeling of being acquired by a company where she did not feel like a great cultural fit. It is a useful conversation for anyone interested in engineering culture, company philosophy, and the realities of acquisitions–which can be both painful and profitable for the acquired employees.
#1219
Aug 28, 2019 · 52 min
Facebook Engineering Process with Kent Beck
Kent Beck is a legendary figure in the world of software engineering. Kent was an early advocate of Test-Driven Development (TDD), and popularized the idea of writing unit tests before writing code that would satisfy those unit tests. A unit test isolates and tests a small piece of functionality within a large piece of software. Practitioners of Test-Driven Development write tens or hundreds of tests in order to cover a large variety of cases that could potentially occur within their software. When Kent Beck joined Facebook in 2011, he was 50 years old and thought he had seen everything in the software industry. During Facebook Boot Camp, Kent started to realize that Facebook was very different than any other company he had seen. Facebook Boot Camp is the six-week onboarding process that every new hire learns about the software practices of the company. After graduating Facebook Boot Camp, Kent began to explore Facebook’s codebase and culture. He found himself rethinking many of the tenets of software engineering that he had previously thought were immutable. Kent joins the show to discuss his time at Facebook, and how the company’s approach to building and scaling products thoroughly reshaped his beliefs about software engineering.
#1218
Aug 27, 2019 · 1 hr 1 min
Facebook Release Engineering with Chuck Rossi
When Chuck Rossi joined Facebook in 2008, he was one of the most experienced release engineers at the company. As he began to explore the engineering practices of the organization, he was surprised, confused, and impressed by the release engineering system that he encountered. Release engineering is the process by which software is released to users. As software is being developed, it moves through a series of testing environments. In these test environments, the software can be studied using simulated inputs that can help developers discover software bugs. Chuck had come to Facebook from Google. At Google, the crown jewel was Google web search which had a regimented release process. At Facebook, the crown jewel was facebook.com. Chuck found that the release process for facebook.com was much different than Google web search. Chuck joins the show to talk about release engineering at Facebook, and how the company constantly evolved its code deployment process. Chuck also describes Facebook’s pivot to mobile, and how the bottlenecks in the mobile app release process threatened Facebook’s ability to iterate and release quickly. This show provided some amazing perspective on continuous delivery, and will be useful to anyone who is working on figuring out their “DevOps” process. Chuck has a wealth of knowledge and context about the modern software industry.
#1217
Aug 26, 2019 · 53 min
Facebook Scaling with Pedram Keyani
Facebook is a large multiuser application. Scaling Facebook was different than scaling a single-user application such as an ecommerce store or a search engine. A social network is faced with unique infrastructure scalability challenges, as well as subjective questions around user communications, privacy, and content. Pedram Keyani worked at Google before joining Facebook in 2007. In his years at Facebook, he worked on infrastructure, internal tools, and management. He became deeply familiar with the company culture and its operations. Pedram joins the show to talk about how Facebook has scaled and the lessons he took away from his time there. After his time at Facebook, Pedram joined Uber, where he worked as a director of engineering for four years. Uber is another multi-user application, with a very different set of constraints. At Uber, Pedram worked on several projects, including Uber’s push into China, which he describes as an intense, competitive experience. Pedram is able to contrast the culture and scaling processes of Uber, Facebook, and Google which made this a rare opportunity to see how three different high performing companies build software differently.
#1216
Aug 23, 2019 · 55 min
Crypto and OSS with Haseeb Qureshi, Joseph Jacks, and Alok Vasudev
Cryptocurrencies are decentralized monetary systems built on open source software. The open source software movement has evolved from the world of Linux, MySQL, and Apache to a thriving ecosystem of commercial enterprises built around open source software. This ecosystem includes projects such as Kubernetes, MongoDB, and ReactJS. It includes large organizations such as Amazon Web Services, Elastic, and Facebook. In a parallel software universe, the crypto ecosystem has built revolutionary new financial tools, creating billions of dollars of value, but not very many massive commercial companies. In the world of cryptocurrencies, many of the same rules apply to the classic open source world. But other rules do not. How do these two worlds differ from each other? How are they the same? And how might they end up colliding? Haseeb Qureshi, Joseph Jacks, and Alok Vasudev join the show for a spirited discussion of cryptocurrencies and open source. Haseeb is a cryptocurrency investor, JJ is the founder of OSS Capital, and Alok is an engineer and the founder of crypto venture capital firm Standard Crypto.
#1215
Aug 22, 2019 · 1 hr 1 min
Technical Onboarding with Kristen Gallagher
When a new employee joins a software company, it is often unclear where that employee should begin. Do they have a mentor? What are they working on? What are the expectations for how fast that employee should be contributing? The early period of employment is often referred to as “onboarding.” During the onboarding period, an employee will learn the basics of the company they have just joined. These basics include the work procedures, meeting schedules, expectations, and technical tools that an employee needs to become productive. A poor onboarding process can slow an employee down, and even cause them to quit the company entirely. Conversely, a good onboarding process can accelerate an employee towards rapid contribution within the organization. A scalable onboarding process can be a difference in millions of dollars in productivity per year across the organization. Kristen Gallagher is the founder of Edify, a company that helps organizations define and implement their onboarding process. Kristen joins the show to talk about the ingredients of a successful onboarding process and what she is doing with her company Edify.

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