Polyglot Programming as a technique is not new and as a paradigm was coined in 2006 by Neal Ford. In today's world, we often architect solutions which need to be highly scalable, secure, efficient, have an engaging GUI, be extensible with low technical debt in parts or whole. To work with a single tech stack promotes a sense of mono culture which is detrimental and limiting the way a solution can be designed. Moreover, with multi-core machines available, processing now can leverage parallel processing and it maybe make more sense to use a language which takes away the overhead of the intricacies of multi-thread programming. In other words, in many cases, engaging in Polyglot Programming helps you focus more on the domain and adds to developer productivity. On the flip side, increasing the moving parts also means that if not designed well, Polyglot Programming could be a double edged sword and produce more mess in the way different pieces interact with each other. In this talk, we will showcase an ecosystem we built, involving a desktop device configuration backed, an OS-agnostic desktop GUI, a cloud service, a cloud cluster configuration tool and how we used the Agile principles, namely TDD, Continuous Integration and the works to be able to keep the polyglot ecosystem sane. Name wise, the languages/tools/etc which we used in our Polyglot case -- Google Go, Node-Webkit, JS (Knockout/RequireJS), Ruby, Cucumber, RIAK, Chef, Lisp, Jenkins

1. Polyglot Programming
and
Agile Development
Shashank Teotia
Pramod Sadalage
ThoughtWorks

2. Problem Statement

3. “To create multi-platform gaming hardware
configuration software with crowd sourcing
and backup abilities with an awesome GUI
which looks the same on all supported
platforms.”
- Client

4. “Adding a new platform / device should be trivial.”

5. “Of course, don’t forget that the software
should have minimal CPU & memory
footprint.
!
Gamers hate bloatware!”

6. “And yes, I have a small team, distributed
across 3 continents. They should be busy
delivering features, not get caught up in the
operational challenges.”

7. :)

8. OK, this is not a special situation!

9. How do you architect?

10. Lets look at the world
for inspiration

11. Does the
carpenter
use just
one tool?
credit: homespothq.com

12. Carpenter
uses many
tools to
get the job
done
credit: homespothq.com

13. Some time back we
could write a
system with COBOL

14. The world by nature is
polyglot

15. Have done it earlier
Bash/Shell
AWK
Perl
SED
etc…

16. Neal Ford coined
the term in 2006
bit.do/neal4d

17. Many new languages
on the JVM started
the trend

18. Java, Jruby,
Jython, Clojure,
Scala, Groovy,
Rhino

19. Lets talk of our
experience

20. Observation &
Awareness

21. “Lets break down the domain!”
- Biz people

22. “Divide & Integrate!”
- informally dressed devs

23. Observation

24. Think Bounded Context
- Eric Evans in Domain Driven Design

25. “To create multi-platform gaming hardware configuration software with crowd
sourcing and backup abilities with an awesome GUI which looks the same on all
supported platforms. And yes, adding a new platform or device should be trivial. Of
course, don’t forget that the software should have minimal CPU and memory
footprint.”
!
“And yes, I have a small team, distributed across 3 continents.They should be busy
delivering features, not get caught up in the operational challenges.”

26. GUI
Core
Device Library
Cloud
crowd sourcing
backup
distributed
operational challenges.
small team available
multi-region
PaaS
replication
Device Driver
cross-platform
multi-platform
hardware configuration
looks the same
awesomelightweight
trivial to add a new platform
lightweight
gaming
multi-threaded
build easy
C interface
trivial to add a new device
generic HID USB interface
long running
short-lived
device communication

27. Awareness

28. In your search for the right language,
you should underrate your current skills.
Repeat it.

29. Choosing the right language is a
competitive edge!

30. Case Study

31. Cloud
crowd sourcing
backup
distributed
operational challenges.
small team available
multi-region
PaaS
replication
GUI
cross-platform
looks the same
awesomelightweight
gaming
short-lived
Core
multi-platform
hardware configuration
trivial to add a new platform
lightweight
multi-threaded
build easy
C interface
long running
Device Library
trivial to add a new device
generic HID USB interface
Device Driver
device communication

32. GUI
cross-platform
looks the same
awesomelightweight
gaming
short-lived
Core
multi-platform
hardware configuration
trivial to add a new platform
lightweight
multi-threaded
build easy
C interface
long running
Device Library
trivial to add a new device
generic HID USB interface
Device Driver
device communication
Chef
Infrastructure as a Service
(scaling is easy)
Sinatra
modular RACK app
(API dev is blazing fast)
RIAK
distributed, CAP tunable DB
(backups never fail)
Cloud

33. Core
multi-platform
hardware configuration
trivial to add a new platform
lightweight
multi-threaded
build easy
C interface
long running
Device Library
trivial to add a new device
generic HID USB interface
Device Driver
device communication
Chef
Infrastructure as a Service
(scaling is easy)
Sinatra
modular RACK app
(API dev is blazing fast)
RIAK
distributed, CAP tunable DB
(backups never fail)
Cloud
node-webkit
Native Apps in HTML5
(write once, run anywhere)
Knockout
lightweight JS MVVM
(complex UI modeling made easy)
GUI
Cocoa
Mac UI Controls

34. Device Library
trivial to add a new device
generic HID USB interface
Device Driver
device communication
Chef
Infrastructure as a Service
(scaling is easy)
Sinatra
modular RACK app
(API dev is blazing fast)
RIAK
distributed, CAP tunable DB
(backups never fail)
Cloud
node-webkit
Native Apps in HTML5
(write once, run anywhere)
Knockout
lightweight JS MVVM
(complex UI modeling made easy)
GUI
Cocoa
Mac UI Controls
Google Go
Core
Interfaces & Build constraints
(easy multi platform dev)
Simple and unambiguous
(focus on the domain)
CGO
(call C code)
built-in concurrency primitives
(no multi-threading hell)
cross platform libraries
(just specify the build env)

35. Device Driver
device communication
Chef
Infrastructure as a Service
(scaling is easy)
Sinatra
modular RACK app
(API dev is blazing fast)
RIAK
distributed, CAP tunable DB
(backups never fail)
Cloud
node-webkit
Native Apps in HTML5
(write once, run anywhere)
Knockout
lightweight JS MVVM
(complex UI modeling made easy)
GUI
Cocoa
Mac UI Controls
Device Library
Lisp
data is code
(add new device)
good old C
Google Go
Core
Interfaces & Build constraints
(easy multi platform dev)
Simple and unambiguous
(focus on the domain)
CGO
(call C code)
built-in concurrency primitives
(no multi-threading hell)
cross platform libraries
(just specify the build env)

36. Chef
Infrastructure as a Service
(scaling is easy)
Sinatra
modular RACK app
(API dev is blazing fast)
RIAK
distributed, CAP tunable DB
(backups never fail)
Cloud
node-webkit
Native Apps in HTML5
(write once, run anywhere)
Knockout
lightweight JS MVVM
(complex UI modeling made easy)
GUI
Cocoa
Mac UI Controls
Device Library
Lisp
data is code
(add new device)
good old C Device Drivergood old C
Google Go
Core
Interfaces & Build constraints
(easy multi platform dev)
Simple and unambiguous
(focus on the domain)
CGO
(call C code)
built-in concurrency primitives
(no multi-threading hell)
cross platform libraries
(just specify the build env)

37. A 10 member team manages it all

38. The Secret Sauce

39. Feed the Build
Pipeline

40. Build Pipeline

41. Core
Func Tests
tarball
report
FrontEndpackage.nwgit
git
git
Promote Build
DeviceLib Drivers
lib

42. Promoted Build artifacts
Installer
pkg
Go exe tarball package.nwlib
Deploy package artifact

43. A good choice!

44. Working with an
embedded Chromium
browser helped!

45. A simple RESTful
SOA
tested using Cukes!

46. Keeping a tight
control
over test code
quality helped!
#failfast

47. Speed & simplicity
of building Go
meant a tighter
turn around!

48. Skype channel for
communication

49. Challenges!

50. Paradigms are hard to
master

51. Debugging can be
tricky

52. Don’t succumb to
the Highlander
Fallacy
bit.do/highlander_fallacy

53. "Always code as if the
g u y w h o e n d s u p
maintaining your code
w i l l b e a v i o l e n t
psychopath who knows
where you live."

54. Ultimately what
matters...

55. ... is a happy
Client

56. And remember
superheroes!

57. bit.do/superpowers

58. Thank you!