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.
Human DevOps - 28th April 2024 - Bad Week, Good Week
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When you turn up to work you have a choice. Your choice is to enjoy the work that's put in front of you or to fight the work. If you fight the work, then be sure you're up to the fight. Some weeks, you're just not in the shape to do the fight, so then leave it. Here's the always-interesting John Cutler talking to Hazel Weakly about software engineering. My favourite quote from Hazel: "Local choices move everything forward in the right direction. Can I give [people] the ability to make decisions [so] that I don't even have to check in with them? [..] That is true multiplication of not just the force, but of the system's synergy." Let's construct a future where we don't need to fight the work. -- Richard Don’t Overthink ItPublished on April 28, 2024 There is a lot of talk about programming. There is also a lot of talk about improving the craft of programming through architecture, TDD, DDD, Agile, pairing, or any host of frameworks or protocols for improving our practice. We can discuss engineering vs. programming. Automation and DevOps as methods that impose feedback mechanisms to improve… Read More »Don’t Overthink It
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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.
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...
The Horizon Post Office Scandal is one of the biggest IT failures in recent times, directly responsible for thirteen of the wrongly accused taking their own lives after prosecutions were brought against them. There is a highly technical deep dive into the findings made by Computer Weekly in this incredible Corecursive podcast episode. It is worth a detailed listen if you want to understand how this could come about and what systemic failings caused it to be covered up for so long. Software...