Tag Archives: texts

John Allspaw: “On Being A Senior Engineer”

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Karl

Absolutely one of the best posts on what I consider to be the responsibilities of my work and what I aspire to practice, John Allspaw has written required reading for anyone looking to become a Senior Engineer or anyone who … Continue reading →

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Thought Provokers From Python’s Guido Van Rossum and Clojure’s Rich Hickey

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Karl

At Strange Loop 2011 Clojure’s Rich Hickey gave a presentation (video) on programming and simplicity that rankled some feathers and triggered a heated discussion at reddit. Duncan McGreggor, decided to contact Python’s Guido Van Rossum to interview him about his … Continue reading →

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Classics: “The Twelve Networking Truths” and “Fallacies of Distributed Computing”

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Karl

Succinct and always worth a re-read: “RFC 1925: The Twelve Networking Truths” and “Fallacies of Distributed Computing”.

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Dizzying but invisible depth: on complexity

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Karl

Jean-Baptiste Queru, on his Google+ profile, posts a poetic and doozy of a post, “Dizzying but invisible depth”: Today’s computers are so complex that they can only be designed and manufactured with slightly less complex computers. In turn the computers … Continue reading →

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Metrics and damn metrics: on systems

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Karl

Sometimes we get caught in numbers and miss what’s real. This can happen especially when we focus on the wrong numbers writes Arpit Mathur in a sharp post. I’d add even if you were looking at the right numbers, without … Continue reading →

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Impermanence and Software Design: on systems

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Karl

When you’re building software, it is probably best to look at things half-Buddhist. Kent Beck writes about building software that won’t be around longer than him in a recent Facebook note: …nothing I am doing now with software will remain … Continue reading →

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On ever growing complexity in programming: on systems

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Karl

Edsger W. Dijkstra gave a lecture, in 1972, that has since been come to be called “The Humble Programmer”. It’s a short piece that explains why software development, why programming, was growing more, not less complex over time, and some … Continue reading →

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A Mathematician’s Lament: on education

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Karl

Paul Lockhart wrote an accessible read on what is wrong with math education and the popular perception of math that is reinforced in culture that has been shared on the Web in quite a few corners. It deserves a wider … Continue reading →

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Screaming Architecture: on systems

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Karl

In “Screaming Architecture” Uncle Bob lays out one of the biggest wins by designing to the problem domain, instead of your weapon (ahem.. framework) of choice: “If you system architecture is all about the use cases, and if you have … Continue reading →

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Anemic Domain Model: on systems

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Karl

Martin Fowler wrote a piece in 2003 that addresses a subtle anti-pattern – developing your domain model code devoid of behavior. It’s a short, interesting read, that is related to the development of fat controllers in MVCish applications: “AnemicDomainModel”: “In … Continue reading →

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