A Sketch of the Biggest Idea in Software Architecture

The article elaborates on the concept of ‘narrow waists’ in software architecture, highlighting its significance across various areas like networking, operating systems, and language design. It contrasts two styles of building software: one focused on fine-grained static types and build-time composition, and the other on coarse-grained ‘waists’ and runtime composition. The post delves into the benefits of the second style, which becomes more evident at larger scales and over longer time horizons, suggesting it encourages global economy, flexibility, generality, and extension at the cost of local convenience.

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