There's No Such Thing As Plain Text • Dylan Beattie • YOW! 2023

This presentation was recorded at YOW! Australia 2023. #GOTOcon #YOW
https://yowcon.com

Dylan Beattie - Consultant, Software Developer & Creator of the Rockstar Programming Language @‪@DylanBeattie‬

RESOURCES
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https://github.com/dylanbeattie
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https://dylanbeattie.net
https://codewithrockstar.com

ABSTRACT
Software is complicated. Machine learning, microservice architectures, message queues… every few months there’s another revolutionary idea to consider, another framework to learn. And underneath so many of these amazing ideas and abstractions is text. When you work in software, you spend your life working with text. Some of those text files are source code, some are configuration files, some of them are documentation. Editors, revision control systems, programming languages - everything from C# and HTML to Git and VS Code is based on the idea that we’re working with “plain text” files. But… what if I told you there’s no such thing?

When we say something is a plain text file, we’re relying on a huge number of assumptions - about operating systems, editors, file formats, language, culture, history… and, most of the time, that’s OK. But when it goes wrong, good old plain text can lead to some of the weirdest bugs you’ve ever seen. Why is there Chinese in the SQL event logs? Why has the city of Aarhus disappeared? And why does Magnus Mårtensson always have trouble getting into the USA?

Join Dylan Beattie for a fascinating look into the hidden world of text files - from the history of mechanical teletypes, to how emoji skin tones actually work. We’ll look at some memorable bugs, some golden rules for working with plain text, and we’ll find out what the phrase “PIKE MATCHBOX” has to do with driving in the Soviet Union. [...]

Read the full abstract here:
https://yowcon.com/sydney-2023/sessio...

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Henney, Buschmann & Schmidt • Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture Volume 5 • https://amzn.to/3GAPzN7
Gamma, Helm, Johnson & Booch • Design Patterns (Gang of Four) • https://amzn.to/3sPJ8yk
David Farley • Modern Software Engineering • https://amzn.to/3GI468M
Kevlin Henney • 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know • https://amzn.to/2Yahf9U

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