Hi, I’m Carrie Anne, and welcome to CrashCourse Computer Science!
So we’ve talked a lot about sorting in this series and often code to sort a list of numbers
might only be ten lines long, which is easy enough for a single programmer to write.
Plus, it’s short enough that you don’t need any special tools – you could do it
in Notepad.
Really!
But, a sorting algorithm isn’t a program; it’s likely only a small part of a much
larger program.
For example, Microsoft Office has roughly 40 millions lines of code.
40 MILLION!
That’s way too big for any one person to figure out and write!
To build huge programs like this, programmers use a set of tools and practices.
Taken together, these form the discipline of Software Engineering – a term coined
by engineer Margaret Hamilton, who helped NASA prevent serious problems during the Apollo
missions to the moon.
She once explained it this way: “It’s kind of like a root canal: you waited till
the end, [but] there are things you could have done beforehand.
It’s like preventative healthcare, but it’s preventative software.”
INTRO
As I mentioned in episode 12, breaking big programs into smaller functions allows many
people to work simultaneously.
They don’t have to worry about the whole thing, just the function they’re working on.
So, if you’re tasked with writing a sort algorithm, you only need to make sure it sorts
properly and efficiently.
However, even packing code up into functions isn’t enough.
Microsoft Office probably contains hundreds of thousands of them.
That’s better than dealing with 40 million lines of code, but it’s still way too many
“things” for one person or team to manage.
The solution is to package functions into hierarchies, pulling related code together
into “objects”.
For example, car’s software might have several functions related to cruise control, like
setting speed, nudging speed up or down, and stopping cruise control altogether.
Since they’re all related, we can wrap them up into a unified cruise control object.
But, we don’t have to stop there, cruise control is just one part of the engine’s
software.
There might also be sets of functions that control spark plug ignition, fuel pumps, and
the radiator.
So we can create a “parent” Engine Object that contains all of these “children”
objects.
In addition to children *objects*, the engine itself might have its *own* functions.
You want to be able to stop and start it, for example.
It’ll also have its own variables, like how many miles the car has traveled.
In general, objects can contain other objects, functions and variables.
And of course, the engine is just one part of a Car Object.
There’s also the transmission, wheels, doors, windows, and so on.
Now, as a programmer, if I want to set the cruise control, I navigate down the object
hierarchy, from the outermost objects to more and more deeply nested ones.
Eventually, I reach the function I want to trigger: “Car, then engine, then cruise
control, then set cruise speed to 55”.
Programming languages often use something equivalent to the syntax shown here.
The idea of packing up functional units into nested objects is called Object Oriented Programming.
This is very similar to what we’ve done all series long: hide complexity by encapsulating
low-level details in higher-order components.
Before we packed up things like transistor circuits into higher-level boolean gates.
Now we’re doing the same thing with software.
Yet again, it’s a way to move up a new level of abstraction!
Breaking up a big program, like a car’s software, into functional units is perfect
for teams.
One team might be responsible for the cruise control system, and a single programmer on
that team tackles a handful of functions.
This is similar to how big, physical things are built, like skyscrapers.
You’ll have electricians running wires, plumbers fitting pipes, welders welding, painters
painting, and hundreds of other people teeming all over the hull.
They work together on different parts simultaneously, leveraging their different skills.
Until one day, you’ve got a whole working building!
But, returning to our cruise control example… its code is going to have to make use of functions
in other parts of the engine’s software, to, you know, keep the car at a constant speed.
That code isn’t part of the cruise control team’s responsibility.
It’s another team’s code.
Because the cruise control team didn’t write that, they’re going to need good documentation
about what each function in the code does, and a well-defined Application Programming
Interface -- or API for short.
You can think of an API as the way that collaborating programmers interact across various parts
of the code.
For example, in the IgnitionControl object, there might be functions to set the RPM of
the engine, check the spark plug voltage, as well as fire the individual spark plugs.
Being able to set the motor’s RPM is really useful, the cruise control team is going to
need to call that function.
But, they don’t know much about how the ignition system works.
It’s not a good idea to let them call functions that fire the individual spark plugs.
Or the engine might explode!
Maybe.
The API allows the right people access to the right functions and data.
Object Oriented Programming languages do this by letting you specify whether functions are
public or private.
If a function is marked as “private”, it means only functions inside that object
can call it.
So, in this example, only other functions inside of IgnitionControl, like the setRPM
function, can fire the sparkplugs.
On the other hand, because the setRPM function is marked as public, other objects can call
it, like cruise control.
This ability to hide complexity, and selectively reveal it, is the essence of Object Oriented
Programming, and it’s a powerful and popular way to tackle building large and complex programs.
Pretty much every piece of software on your computer, or game running on your console,
was built using an Object Oriented Programming Language, like C++, C# or Objective-C. Other
popular “OO” languages you may have heard of are Python and Java.
It’s important to remember that code, before being compiled, is just text.
As I mentioned earlier, you could write code in Notepad or any old word processor.
Some people do.
But generally, today’s software developers use special-purpose applications for writing
programs, ones that integrate many useful tools for writing, organizing, compiling and
testing code.
Because they put everything you need in one place, they’re called Integrated Development
Environments, or IDEs for short.
All IDEs provide a text editor for writing code, often with useful features like automatic
color-coding to improve readability.
Many even check for syntax errors as you type, like spell check for code.
Big programs contain lots of individual source files, so IDEs allow programmers to organize
and efficiently navigate everything.
Also built right into the IDE is the ability to compile and run code.
And if your program crashes, because it’s still a work in progress, the IDE can take
you back to the line of code where it happened, and often provide additional information to
help you track down and fix the bug, which is a process called debugging.
This is important because most programmers spend 70 to 80% of their time testing and
debugging, not writing new code.
Good tools, contained in IDEs, can go a long way when it comes to helping programmers prevent
and find errors.
Many computer programmers can be pretty loyal to their IDEs though - but let’s be honest.
VIM is where it’s at.
Providing you know how to quit.
In addition to coding and debugging, another important part of a programmer's job is documenting
their code.
This can be done in standalone files called “read-me’s” which tell other programmers
to read that help file before diving in.
It can also happen right in the code itself with comments.
These are specially-marked statements that the program knows to ignore when the code
is compiled.
They exist only to help programmers figure out what’s what in the source code.
Good documentation helps programmers when they revisit code they haven’t seen for
awhile, but it’s also crucial for programmers who are totally new to it.
I just want to take a second here and reiterate that it’s THE WORST when someone parachutes
a load of uncommented and undocumented code into your lap, and you literally have to go
line by line to understand what the code is doing.
Seriously.
Don’t be that person.
Documentation also promotes code reuse.
So, instead of having programmers constantly write the same things over and over, they
can track down someone else’s code that does what they need.
Then, thanks to documentation, they can put it to work in their program, without ever
having to read through the code.
“Read the docs” as they say.
In addition to IDEs, another important piece of software that helps big teams work collaboratively
on big coding projects is called Source Control, also known as version control or revision control.
Most often, at a big software company like Apple or Microsoft, code for projects is stored
on centralized servers, called a code repository.
When a programmer wants to work on a piece of code, they can check it out, sort of like
checking out a book out from a library.
Often, this can be done right in an IDE.
Then, they can edit this code all they want on their personal computer, adding new features
and testing if they work.
When the programmer is confident their changes are working and there are no loose ends, they
can check the code back into the repository, known as committing code, for everyone else
to use.
While a piece of code is checked out, and presumably getting updated or modified, other
programmers leave it alone.
This prevents weird conflicts and duplicated work.
In this way, hundreds of programmers can be simultaneously checking in and out pieces
of code, iteratively building up huge systems.
Critically, you don’t want someone committing buggy code, because other people and teams
may rely on it.
Their code could crash, creating confusion and lost time.
The master version of the code, stored on the server, should always compile without
errors and run with minimal bugs.
But sometimes bugs creep in.
Fortunately, source control software keeps track of all changes, and if a bug is found,
the whole code, or just a piece, can be rolled back to an earlier, stable version.
It also keeps track of who made each change, so coworkers can send nasty, I mean, helpful
and encouraging emails to the offending person.
Debugging goes hand in hand with writing code, and it’s most often done by an individual
or small team.
The big picture version of debugging is Quality Assurance testing, or QA.
This is where a team rigorously tests out a piece of software, attempting to create
unforeseen conditions that might trip it up.
Basically, they elicit bugs.
Getting all the wrinkles out is a huge effort, but vital in making sure the software works
as intended for as many users in as many situations as imaginable before it ships.
You’ve probably heard of beta software This is a version of software that’s mostly complete,
but not 100% fully tested.
Companies will sometimes release beta versions to the public to help them identify issues,
it’s essentially like getting a free QA team.
What you don’t hear about as much is the version that comes before the beta: the alpha version.
This is usually so rough and buggy, it’s only tested internally.
So, that’s the tip of the iceberg in terms of the tools, tricks and techniques that allow
software engineers to construct the huge pieces of software that we know and love today, like
YouTube, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Powerpoint.
As you might expect, all those millions of lines of code needs some serious processing
power to run at useful speeds, so next episode we’ll be talking about how computers got so incredibly fast.
See you then.