% DRAFT: Running Software: A Preliminary Hierarchy of Abstraction
% Michael Stone
% March 15, 2014

As I wrote a few months back, I've been thinking about [how to run
software][software]. Since then, I've noticed:

1. As with networking, the static parts of the end-to-end task of "running
software" seem to be usefully decomposable into a hierarchy of layers of
abstraction like so:

![](layers.svg)

2. As in manufacturing + product development, the [intersecting
waterfall/spiral][joint-model] seems to be a useful mental model for how to
bring software together with hardware.

[software]: /posts/running-software-20130816/
[joint-model]: http://books.google.com/books?id=OT8NntOdjU0C&pg=PA61

3. Curiously, even though it has historically been the case that different
languages are used both within and between layers, I find that I am
increasingly enjoying systems that impose more uniformity, both for in-layer
work (like, e.g., [Golang][golang] and [GCL][gcl]) and for between-layer
configuration (like [Nix][nix]).

[golang]: http://golang.org
[gcl]: http://alexandria.tue.nl/extra1/afstversl/wsk-i/bokharouss2008.pdf
[nix]: http://nixos.org