"Hey how does the foobulizer work again?"
Ugh not this again. You've been answering this same damn question for months. How are they still not getting it?? 🙄
It's simple!
You take the gnasher, connect it to the third function call from the left on a full moon, or the fourth one from top, if it's Sunday, then you plug into the fantalizer, add 3 lines of code using the in-house configuration language built from JSON, stand on your right leg, hold the left nostril, and voila: the foobulizer.
I mean seriously, are they all stupid?
Write the docs
Your team is smart.
When you get (or ask) the same question over and over, that's a symptom. The problem is the codebase. Or the architecture. Or the data model. Or the docs.
Your team can't help itself. They need you.
Fantastic job security aaaaand that's why senior engineers get nothing done. There's no time. 💩
When you answer the same question 3 times, write it down. Share the link.
When they ask again, edit and share the link.
Your doc won't always answer all the nuance of a question but it helps. Gets you on common ground, makes the chat more productive.
If your team keeps asking a question, write a doc.
— Swizec Teller (@Swizec) February 4, 2021
If they keep asking, build the magic function that does the thing. Make it [easily] discoverable in your codebase.
If you don't, they *will* find the wrong way 😉#seniormindset
And the more you write, the less you have to keep in your head. Mine has the memory of a goldfish 😇
The Senior Minset email crash course
Get a free chapter from the Senior Engineer Mindset book and a sample audiobook chapter, followed by a Senior Mindset 101 email course.
You'll get insights to apply at your work right away.
The Magic Function
You know what's even better than up-to-date docs? Not needing docs.
Imagine if instead of a complex 6 step process you could start the foobulizer with startFoobulizer().
We used to have this problem at work. We still do but not with that part 😛
The Magic Function saved my butt
Verifying insurance was my first introduction to "Holy shit health tech is something else".
The process goes like this: Get your info, maybe use what exists, talk to an API, see if it's valid, check a sea of inscrutable codes, decide if your insurance supports this appointment at this time (yes it changes), and a bunch other details.
You don't want to deal with this as a user.
Heck, I didn't wanna deal with it as a programmer! Confusing, terrible, makes-no-sense.
We had an Insurance module, but it was hard to hold. You had to call the right functions in the right sequence at the right time.
Get it wrong and the company doesn't get paid.
I got it wrong. Five times 😅
Edge case after edge case, bug after bug, meeting after meeting. 3 of us working on this stupid thing.
We had docs, we had code, yet we couldn't make it work.
Until one day the dude who grokked the business logic said "Screw this, this is bullshit."
He built a new function: Insurance.verify(user, appointment).
And oh my god it was beautiful. Cut through all the crap. You call this method, give it a user and an appointment, and it does it all for you. Standing on the right leg holding its left nostril and all! 😍
Nobody has asked an insurance question since.
Why The Magic Function works
The Magic Function is a high level method that does the thing the whole thing and nothing but the thing.
Forget reading and understanding docs. Forget writing and updating docs. Just make it work.
Why is it called The Magic Function principle?
— Swizec Teller (@Swizec) February 4, 2021
Because of this quote from Penn & Teller. *you* do the work so the rest of your team doesn't have to pic.twitter.com/eM7B32L7p4
You do the work so your team doesn't have to. Like Penn & Teller say:
Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect. ~ Teller of Penn&Teller fame
You write The Magic Function when you see that code always goes together. You always make this DB update after that API call. You always call these 3 functions together. You always ...
The Magic Function frees your team from that complexity. Instead of worrying about the details, they focus on their problem. 🧙
Best part: they'll find your function on their own. No questions, no confusion.
Engineers always find a way. Help them find the way.
Ye olde unix philosophy??
The opposite of The Magic Function is the unix philosophy – lots of small composable utilities.
Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new "features". Expect the output of every program to become the input to another, as yet unknown, program
How you read this depends on your idea of "one thing".
Is one thing to verify insurance, or to call an API for 1 out of 50 different ways it needs to be called depending on circumstance? 🤔
It's fractal. Single responsibility all the way down. A magic function calls other magic functions.
You wouldn't wanna think about optimizing DOM updates to draw a button, just like your HTML rendering shouldn't think about where the HTML is from.
Write functions, mostly magic. Think fractals.
✌️
Cheers,
~Swizec
PS: how to start a 1928 Ford is a 20min video. These days you press a button and go. When's the last time you read the instruction manual for a car?
Continue reading about The Magic Function principle
Semantically similar articles hand-picked by GPT-4
- Modern backend is a JavaScript function
- Don't neglect your upgrades
- Is hot dog taco?
- If you can JavaScript, you can backend
- A JavaScript function that makes $40,000+/year
Become a *true* Senior Engineer
Get promoted, earn a bigger salary, work for top companies
Getting that senior title is easy. Just stick around. Being a true senior takes a new way of thinking. Do you have it?
The Senior Minset email crash course
Get a free chapter from the Senior Engineer Mindset book and a sample audiobook chapter, followed by a Senior Mindset 101 email course.
You'll get insights to apply at your work right away.
Have a burning question that you think I can answer? Hit me up on twitter and I'll do my best.
Who am I and who do I help? I'm Swizec Teller and I turn coders into engineers with "Raw and honest from the heart!" writing. No bullshit. Real insights into the career and skills of a modern software engineer.
Want to become a true senior engineer? Take ownership, have autonomy, and be a force multiplier on your team. The Senior Engineer Mindset ebook can help 👉 swizec.com/senior-mindset. These are the shifts in mindset that unlocked my career.
Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, for frontend engineers 👉 ServerlessHandbook.dev
Want to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz React components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization
Want to get my best emails on JavaScript, React, Serverless, Fullstack Web, or Indie Hacking? Check out swizec.com/collections
Did someone amazing share this letter with you? Wonderful! You can sign up for my weekly letters for software engineers on their path to greatness, here: swizec.com/blog
Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com
By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❤️