Software systems rule our world. My regular newsletter explores the human factors that make software engineering so unique, so difficult, so important and all consuming.
Friday 1st March - Learning to say No is Hard
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Yesterday, someone got me on a call and was trying to force me something to do something that I didn't want to do. I told them this wasn't in line with how our team worked. I also told them that wasn't something that I felt comfortable doing. -- You tend to think that the older you get, the easier it is to navigate the relationships you're in at work. In truth, it becomes more complex because the more we know, the more we have to give and the more useful we are to others. Therefore it can often be a challenge to blend the time we're spending helping people rather than focusing on the techincal things. And that's a good thing. -- Richard Too Busy To Do It RightPublished on February 19, 2024  DevOps transformations can often become a checklist of tools and processes we need to assemble, like so much Ikea furniture. But DevOps is not a kit of things you can apply to your organisation. It’s a mindset. And you can’t force an organisation of people to think the same way. I recently listened to an… Read More »Too Busy To Do It Right
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The Human Software
Software systems rule our world. My regular newsletter explores the human factors that make software engineering so unique, so difficult, so important and all consuming.
Last couple of weeks, I've been rebuilding some Windows base images in order to comply with corporate patching policies. The new images are CIS hardened which means they follows guidelines set out by the Center for Internet Security benchmark. This ultimately means that the images are restricted in what they can do, what they can access, what is installed upon them by default. These security measures work in opposition to the automation we already have in place for our customers. This is the...
Aside from being a writer, I'm also an avid film and TV watcher. This week we were blessed by the arrival of Pluribus on AppleTV. It's a speculative science fiction series written by Vince Gilligan, co-creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. He's someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to writing, producing and directing these incredibly successful series. More than that though, he picks the best people and directs them with ease. Here's a bit on when Vince Gilligan knew...
Greg Wilson of Software Carpentry fame knows how to write a headline. His recent talk Cocaine and Conway's Law is a mine of brilliant ideas and books to add to your reading list. They talk invested me immediately through his excoriation of Mark Andreessen's "Techno Optimist Manifesto" as a part of the Peter Thiel/Elon Musk narrative - work harder and longer, fix all problems via tech. Conway's Law, for those who are unfamiliar is the implicit link between social organisation of a company and...