DEV Community: Nikos

What plastering my first wall taught me about software architecture

Nikos — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 10:47:41 +0000

Title
What plastering my first wall taught me about software architecture

Body
Last week I plastered my first wall and made the mistake of doing it in halves.

I finished the bottom section first, then moved up and did the top. The join between them turned messy because the wall should have been done in one continuous pass. I then spent the next 2 days fixing rough areas with jointing compound and sanding.

What struck me was how architectural the mistake felt.

The wall did not really fail in the flat middle. It failed at the join. That felt very close to software architecture, where problems often show up first at boundaries:

between old and new code
between services
between frontend and backend
between the model and the workflow it is supposed to support

A few things stood out to me:

The finish cannot rescue a weak layer underneath.
Rework gets expensive fast once the next layer is already involved.
Physical work gives immediate feedback. Software often delays it until integration or production.
More effort is not always better effort if the sequencing is wrong.
Cleanliness and discipline matter more than glamour.

That last point felt especially true architecturally. A lot of the work that keeps systems calm is not flashy: clear boundaries, clean environments, naming, predictable deployment, and not carrying old mistakes into the next layer.

I wrote a longer version here if anyone is interested:
https://nikoskatsikanis.com/blog/plastering-code

Curious whether other people have found the same thing: architecture problems often stay hidden in the middle, but edges and joins tell the truth first.

Making redwoodjs videos!

Nikos — Sat, 04 Jul 2020 21:09:22 +0000

I'm not one for writing, but you can follow here!). :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7-IwJ35xOE

Fullstack starter for Svelte and netlify

Nikos — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 22:13:18 +0000

I made a fullstack starter for #svelte and netlify.

live demo https://svelte-netlify-identity.netlify.com

I will be adding support for firebase next.

See the youtube series for full explanations.

📘Svelte Fullstack Starter Playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCrwuqjmVebJeMDrAPQDrJmnwXWDw3CJW

https://github.com/QuantumInformation/svelte-fullstack-starter

Svelte, Sapper and the Compiler step by step videos

Nikos — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 08:34:05 +0000

I'm making some in-depth videos on the Svelte compiler output. We will see how far I get:

📘Svelte and Google Cloud masterclass playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCrwuqjmVebK08Cwz_XB55cNKFfFYOMGo

📘Svelte Compiler playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LXEN0Pw6y0&list=PLCrwuqjmVebJoaVCVP5NOxEd4DLH6QUgK