The Great Repository Debate - Jisse Reitsma

Your host: Joseph Maxwell, Founder and CEO of SwiftOtter

Special guest: Jisse Reitsma, Developer, Trainer and Speaker

Show Notes

Jisse Reitsma is an extremely knowledgeable, Dutch ecommerce developer with an impressive history. His core focus nowadays is on his education platform, Yireo.com, where he trains developers on Magento 2, Shopware 6, React and Vue. From a recent public debate on social media to a helpful discussion here on Smash the Bug, Joseph and Jisse certainly can produce quite an interesting conversation. In this explosive episode of Smash the Bug, Joseph and Jisse explore the conversation of product repositories, efficiency enhancements and what originally sparked their little disagreement on social media.

Apparently there are two distinct camps regarding product repositories. But why? Jisse briefly explains that the repository supposedly exists in order to make things simpler when a dev is attempting to interact with their database. The question is: are repositories actually making life simpler or is there a better way? In short, it might depend heavily on the situation. Joseph believes that while repositories can be useful, they shouldn’t be encouraged over interacting directly with product collection because “there are too many things going on”. Due to the sheer workload the product repository is handling, they can unnecessarily slow work down while accessing the database. Jisse argues that the core issue may not actually be with the product repository, and the two of them are able to find common ground on the fact that the size of the merchant may play into the equation in a fairly big way. There might be a pretty big difference between a merchant with 100 product options and one with 10,000.

It’s important to note that a good developer isn’t just someone who has a great collection of tools and tricks, but one who is always open to exploring the options, being flexible in every situation, and activating creativity when a process they’ve previously conquered suddenly breaks down. To quote the great Ben Marks from his Twitter page, “Remember, all software is garbage, and we are merely sanitation engineers”. While this sounds kind of rough, it’s inevitably true. If you’re expecting your code to never break or your favorite tool to work in every situation, you forgot what your job is and why you have it! This is much like the certification process in that the goal isn’t to memorize the test and pass it, but to gather knowledge, solidify it, and apply actual experience in new ways.

After discussing why product repositories may or may not be the best solution for interacting with the database, Joseph and Jisse came to the (potentially inevitable) conclusion that Magento (Adobe Commerce) is probably due for a whole new resource that’s made to handle this job and takes into account the changes to Magento that have taken place in the past five years. What if the community could come up with a 3rd party substitution that will accomplish the job efficiently? Is that not what open source is all about? Jisse urges developers to not depend on Magento to improve these processes, but to embrace the opportunity to find or attempt to create their own solution. After all, what is Hyva all about and why is everyone excited about it? It’s all about throwing out the parts of Magento that aren’t working well and creating a solution from the outside. To paraphrase Joseph’s statement at about 26:00, it’s time to go from the complaining stage to the critique stage and to take action instead of throwing rocks. 

(Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)