Recently a historian friend of mine put some data on Facebook about Henry VIII of England and his wives. It showed how old the women were when they married him, how old when they died and how old he was when he married them. It provoked a reaction in me that has happened before with … Continue reading The lives and marriages of Henry VIII and his wives
Tech debt as risk of friction
Tech debt is a term that’s used quite a bit in software development, and I recently realised a new way of thinking about it: the risk of future friction. I’ll explain what I mean below, starting with a brief discussion of what I mean about risk in general. Risk Before I get into risk as … Continue reading Tech debt as risk of friction
Commentate on your code
Sometimes a method mixes levels of abstraction, where one section goes into more detail than the rest of the method. This can make it hard to understand – code can be hard to understand when it’s on only one abstraction level, and introducing an extra level only makes things worse. One way to detect whether … Continue reading Commentate on your code
Be Kind
This article is about kindness at work, particularly kindness as part of building software (although much of it is relevant to all businesses). I’ve been meaning to write something like this for ages, and finally was given a kick up the backside by watching an excellent talk by Dan Terhorst-North. I really recommend the talk … Continue reading Be Kind
Chaos engineering and the relationship between code and teams
This article is about a few things – chaos engineering, an analogy that explains it, then digging a bit deeper into the relationship between software and the team that produced it. It was sparked by a conversation with Stuart Day, for which I’m very grateful. Chaos engineering Chaos engineering is a technique to improve the … Continue reading Chaos engineering and the relationship between code and teams
Generative AI and skills
There has been a lot in tech news and opinion recently about what generative AI will or won’t do, such as take away jobs from programmers and testers. I’ve had a long enough career in software to be able to put generative AI in a bigger context, which I think helps to understand some of … Continue reading Generative AI and skills
You’re probably not working at Facebook
This article is about deciding when to implement architectural changes and large functional changes to a software system. There is no general right or wrong answer, because it depends on the context of your users/customers and your organisation. Even though they are the best-known, Big Tech companies such as Facebook are in the small minority, … Continue reading You’re probably not working at Facebook
You’re probably wrong
In this article I make a suggestion that might sound absurd: when developing software, you should assume that you’re wrong. Once you make this assumption, it can influence quite a lot of what we do and how we do it in ways that I think help us to deliver better software. Why do I think … Continue reading You’re probably wrong
Writing numbers as words
This article is about how numbers are written as words in various languages. It also has a tiny bit about functions, specifically fixed points of functions, which I use to describe how numbers work in the different languages. I speak only one of the languages below as a native, so I've probably made lots of … Continue reading Writing numbers as words
Nim
Nim is a simple game for two people. In this article I will describe it in case you don't know it (or don't know this version of it), and then describe how I've modelled it in a C# program and what I learned about the game as a result. The game There is a simple … Continue reading Nim
Random Tech Thoughts 