Wanted to write about something that clicked last night. The great differentiator between the median engineer and the median [salesman|manager|product person] is killer instinct. "Killer instinct" is the drive to hunt down and grab immediate results, setting aside other concerns (like: morality, long-term benefit, or the welfare of others) to do so. It is, in the some ways, the opposite of being a…
A while ago Venkat wrote a a great article: Can "Tech" Die? , where he defined tech thus: "Tech is a growing agency pie, and a Techie could be defined as someone who is participating in a way that they’re gaining agency faster than secondary actors[finance, politics] can take it away." The "natural state" of the world, the world at rest, is: developers go to college and slave away getting CS…
I spoke at the Clojure Provo meetup last night, titling the talk "Programming is Folklore." But perhaps a more clear way to talk about what I meant is to talk about "parochialism" in programming. This morning, I woke up and jotted down a "summarized" version for a friend, included here: With the benefit of hindsight (and some more sleep), I wanted to state the point more clearly. The first is that…
I've never really liked testing. This has not been a psychically easy position to hold. What does the internet have to say about testing? A billion is just a number---much harder to discount are the myriad reports of smart people that tests are essential , there is no other way to approach things, any piece of software without tests is an unworkable piece of crap. I respect these people. How to…
I'll be looking for a new job soon, readers! And this has been cause for some reflection. In Emeryville, CA, there is an "international food hall" called the Public Market . "International food hall" is not a common phrase, because international food halls are not common buildings. But it is basically a food court leveled up a few times---a food court, if you made it eight times the size and gave…
A few days ago, on the phone with a friend, I found a sentence coming out of my mouth that I wasn't sure I agreed with. I don't remember the exact words I used; it was something like "The chief shortage in today's economy is access to enterprise buyers," but here's what I meant: We have enough stuff. We have stuff coming out of our ears! But this cheers no one; what we are actually concerned about…
I pasted the following into a group chat with some friends. "J is pretty great" |syntax error | "J is pretty great" "I don't know how to do strings in it" |open quote | "I don't know how to do strings in it" | ^ "It has normal infix notation" "It has normal infix notation" |syntax error | "It has normal infix notation" 5 + 3 8 NB. Adorably, you start comments with "NB." NB. J is an offshoot of…