GOTO - The Brightest Minds in Tech

Building Better Software: Why Workflows Beat Code Every Time • Ben Smith & James Beswick

13 snips
Jan 6, 2026
Guest
Ben Smith
Ben Smith, a Staff Developer Advocate at Stripe, and James Beswick, Head of Developer Relations at Stripe, dive into why workflows can outperform conventional coding approaches. They discuss how workflows simplify error handling and idempotency, making distributed systems more manageable. The duo also tackles the importance of observability, the pitfalls of reintroducing monolith issues, and the nuances of building effective demos for developers. Their insights on gradually adopting extensions and navigating cloud services offer a fresh perspective for tech enthusiasts.
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ADVICE

Prefer Thin Events With Caution

  • Prefer thin events to avoid fat payloads that recreate tight coupling.
  • Store extra data in lookups but watch for downstream request overload.
ANECDOTE

Plugin Architecture Built With Event Hooks

  • Serverless Video used event hooks to let developers add post-production plugins without touching core code.
  • The workflow waited for plugin responses, stored them, and passed results to subsequent steps.
ADVICE

Introduce Extensions On Low‑Risk Features

  • Start extensions on low-risk features with a small blast radius.
  • Prove value, then expand the extension ecosystem incrementally.
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