Applying Large Scale Diffing to Declarative Configuration Code for Production Safety

Explore a conference talk from ACM SIGPLAN's CONFLANG23 that delves into the application of large-scale diffing to declarative configuration code for enhancing production safety. Learn about the challenges Google faces with changing config code, including unintended consequences of declarative code, reduced readability due to leaky abstractions, and difficulties in testing. Discover how configuration diffing addresses these issues by avoiding control flow exposure, eliminating the need for writing tests, and bypassing poorly written code and abstractions. Understand the concept of configuration diffing as a model for verifying configuration code output, comprising dependency management, execution, and delivery aspects. Gain insights into this approach's potential benefits and limitations for preventing outages in large-scale production environments.