Code as Product, Part 2: A New Way of Thinking

Shifting our perspective to see code as a product is a powerful first step, but it’s not the end of the story. The real challenge—and where the true value lies—is in continuously adapting that product to the developers who use it. After all, a product that doesn’t evolve with its users is destined to be left behind.

In the first part of this series, we discussed the essential principles of treating internal code as a product. Let’s look at how we can bring those principles to life.

Code as Product, Part 1: The Developer as the Customer

What if we treated our fellow developers with the same care we treat our external customers? It’s a subtle shift in perspective, but treating our internal code, our platforms, and our APIs as “products” can fundamentally change the way we work for the better. This is at the core of Platform Engineering.

This idea has been so impactful that I’ve decided to explore it as a series. In this first part, we’ll start with explaining the reason behind it and some core concepts.

Using Identity Functions

An identity function is a very basic function that takes one argument and the only thing it does is return the argument value. Pretty simple: f(x) = x. This function is important in mathematics, e.g., in Category theory, but is it useful in everyday programming?

A Quick Look at Map and FlatMap

I wrote about higher order functions in my last post and I mentioned their importance in Scala, but I didn’t want to digress too much. Now it’s time to introduce two great examples of higher order functions, map and flatMap. Map and flatMap are implemented for all collection types in the Scala collection library. They are quite significant functions in Scala, and functional programming in general, so they rightfully deserve their own post.

A Story Of Higher Order Functions

I find higher order functions to be one of the key properties of functional programming languages, as they enable functions to be first-class values in a language. Per definition, every function that takes functions as arguments and/or returns functions as results is a higher order function.