Some Software Engineering Humor and Wisdom

A video and a post from some friends of mine:

Jon Moore: Video: “Every discussion about REST Ever”

Michael Bevilacqua-Linn: “Unicorns and Strong Typing”.

Mozilla’s Save For Later

The team at Mozilla posted a great piece documenting their idea and design process for what may be a new feature set in Firefox: “Save For Later”.

John Allspaw: “On Being A Senior Engineer”

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 wants to grow into a better one: “On Being A Senior Engineer” (via rc3.org).

Like thinking about Systems? Like Douglas Adams? Read Systemantics

I’m reading “Systemantics” by John Gall and find myself at times laughing to myself and at times wretching in scenarios I recognize all too well in my work. His humor, which is straight out of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy”, helps with the pain. This might end up next to “The Mythical Man-Month” on my bookshelf and as a book I recommend to any coder looking to to progress from simply writing code, to solving problems.

Related:

laetus in praesens: Why Systems Fail and Problems Sprout Anew: Commentary on the principles of ‘Systemantics’

Two other debates to watch or listen to

Both of these are worth listening to or watching:

NPR.org hosted a Third-Party debate featuring Gary Johnson, of the Libertarian Party, and Jill Stein, of the Green Party. Link includes a transcript.

And Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart recently had a fun, and thought provoking debate in The Air-Conditioned Auditorium that is notable for the frankness of discussion and the fact that there was a real back-and-forth between them.

Doctor Who documentary from 1986

YouTube.com: Doctor Who’s Who’s Who 1986 – EDITED!:

A fun watch for the Doctor Who off-season.

“Mysterious Algorithm Was 4% of Trading Activity Last Week”

According to CNBC an unknown program triggered 4% of trading activity last week:

The program placed orders in 25-millisecond bursts involving about 500 stocks, according to Nanex, a market data firm. The algorithm never executed a single trade, and it abruptly ended at about 10:30 a.m. Friday.

Someone testing in production perhaps?