Dan Farrelly, Tony Holdstock-Brown - Inngest, Easy Asynchronous Workflows
Jun 3, 2024
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Dan Farrelly and Tony Holdstock-Brown, co-founders of Inngest, discuss the ease of building asynchronous workflows with Inngest. They talk about simplifying backend code deployment with Ingest's SDK, streamlining developer experiences, optimizing workflows through code efficiency, and the future of industry trends towards better DSLs and 'no code' development.
Ingest offers a declarative approach for building asynchronous workflows based on events, reducing the need for state flow control.
Ingest's SDK design focuses on simplicity and seamless deployment across various environments, allowing developers to focus on application development without infrastructure constraints.
Ingest prioritizes optionality and flexibility by enabling functions to run across different platforms, emphasizing customization and accommodating varying developer preferences.
Deep dives
Solving Workflow Complexity with Declarative Approach
Ingest aims to simplify complex workflows in systems like healthcare by leveraging events to manage logic. Traditional queuing systems like SQS address infrastructure problems but leave developers to manage application level complexities. Ingest offers a declarative approach where developers can define steps based on events, wait times, and failure-handling conditions, reducing the need for managing state flow control and intricate workflow logic.
Enhancing Developer Productivity with Ingest SDK
Ingest's SDK design focuses on simplicity and leveraging language primitives, ensuring that developers can easily define functions and concurrency limits without altering their coding practices. The SDK allows for seamless deployment across various environments, including serverless platforms, by emphasizing a stateless approach and open code visibility. Its flexibility and ease of use enable developers to focus on building their applications without being constrained by infrastructure complexities.
Driving Optionality and Developer Flexibility with Ingest
Ingest prioritizes optionality and flexibility by enabling developers to run functions across different platforms, including Dino, Versa, Docker, and serverless environments. By defaulting to HTTP invocation and maximizing for flexibility, Ingest empowers developers to work in their preferred environments without the need for significant modifications. The focus on interfaces and contracts underscores the importance of providing customizable solutions and accommodating varying developer needs.
Decoupling Code from Infrastructure for Easy System Building
The podcast delves into the concept of decoupling code from infrastructure to streamline system building. By mapping system functionalities to code closely, developers can simplify the building process. An example discussed involves automating appointment reminders based on user actions, showcasing the power of declarative configuration in shaping function behavior. The emphasis is on simplifying user experience by aligning code expression with available primitives, minimizing the need for extensive upfront learning. The podcast highlights that while advanced patterns emerge with system complexity, the focus remains on making system operations as straightforward as possible for developers.
Ensuring Idempotency in System Operations and Code Execution
The episode explores the critical concept of idempotency in system operations and code execution. Highlighting the importance of ensuring that code can be run multiple times without altering outcomes, the podcast offers insights into mitigating potential issues related to duplicate executions. Methods to achieve idempotency are discussed, such as attaching unique IDs at the producer level to prevent redundancy and utilizing key patterns at the consumer side for efficient data handling. The emphasis is on providing developers with tools and patterns to manage idempotency effectively within their systems, underscoring the significance of thoughtful design to handle potential multiple event triggers effectively.
This week we have the co-founders of Inngest, Dan Farrelly and Tony Holdstock-Brown. Inngest is a event driven workflow platform that makes it incredibly easy to build asynchronous workflows in your application. We talk about the history of Inngest, how it works, and how you can use it to build your own workflows.