What a computer game taught me about software architecture

Franz Thoma

Playlists: 'bobkonf2023' videos starting here / audio

Factorio is a simulation game where you build a highly automated factory, producing the technology to eventually launch a rocket to space. Along the way, every new task will be manual at first, but you can (and will need to) automate it.

I stumbled upon this game a few years ago, got hooked, and spent (way!) too many hours playing it. While I was knee-deep in refactoring my base in Factorio, making it more scalable and resilient, at some point I realized that this is eerily similar to what I’m doing in my day job. (Probably also the cause why I’m so seriously hooked on that game.)

So although this talk will look like it’s about Factorio, it’s in fact about how to bootstrap and scale teams and projects, about monoliths and microservices, and about the cost of maintenance.

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