Software Development Detox Part 5: Session

In my previous installment (oh-my-god, it's already been a year!), I've discussed the hard-wired need to retain central point of control when building software. Today, I'm going to examine the central software concept that implements this urge for control: session.

Session is a vessel used for retaining the memory of all the events that had occurred during the software interaction. It often gets implemented with the intention of providing continuity during the interaction.

Because of its central position in the overall architectural solution of a networked software, session as a concept is very brittle. It can quickly gain entropy and can end up costing a lot in terms of computing infrastructure.

On the web, however, since the prevailing architecture is stateless, the concept of session is entirely unnecessary. The memory of an interaction that may occur on the web need not be retained by any participant.

Realization of this simple dictum is proving to be extremely difficult for many software developers. They feel that, without having the crutches and training wheels that the concept of session provides, they will have no way of knowing how to make a decision on what to do next. At least when they use the state of the conversation, as recorded in the session, they can write some logic that would help them execute some meaningful actions. But without that knowledge available to them, they feel lost.

This sentiment bellies the lack of understanding of the web architecture. On the web, each request contains all the information necessary for the server code to make a decision on what to do next. There is absolutely no need for the server to keep track of any previous requests. Not only is such a task exorbitantly expensive, it also creates a single point of failure, which is the primary cause of faulty software being deployed live worldwide.

So the advice to all budding software developers is: abandon the idea of a session, and rely on your own wits when building the business logic that drives your site. Going through such software development detox procedure will ensure that you build and deliver robust, lightweight web sites that will be easy to host and maintain.