APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Author Archives: Graham
Hyperloops for our minds
We were promised a bicycle for our minds. What we got was more like a highly-efficient, privately run mass transit tunnel. It takes us where it’s going, assuming we pay the owner. Want to go somewhere else? Tough. Can’t afford … Continue reading
Ratio
The web has a weird history with comments. I have a book called Zero Comments, a critique of blog culture from 2008. It opens by quoting from a 2005 post from a now defunct website, stodge.org. The Wayback Machine does … Continue reading
Mach and Matchmaker: kernel and language support for object-oriented distributed systems
About this paper Mach and Matchmaker: kernel and language support for object-oriented distributed systems , Michael B. Jones and Richard F. Rashid, from the proceedings of OOPSLA ’86. Notes Yes, 1986 was a long time ago, but the topics of … Continue reading
Posted in academia, architecture of sorts, OOP
Tagged History of Software Engineering
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The balloon goes up
To this day, many Smalltalk projects have a hot air balloon in their logo. These reference the cover of the issue of Byte Magazine in which Smalltalk-80 was shared with the wider programming community. Modern Smalltalks all have a lot … Continue reading
Image
I love my Testsphere deck, from Ministry of Testing. I’ve twice seen Riskstorming in action, and the first time that I took part I bought a deck of these cards as soon as I got back to my desk. I’m … Continue reading
Posted in tool-support
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Why 80?
80 characters per line is a standard worth sticking to, even today. OK, why? Well, back up. Let’s examine the axioms. Is 80 characters per line a standard? Not really, it’s a convention. IBM cards (which weren’t just made by … Continue reading
Last Chance: Ultimate Programmer Super Stack
Remember this? It’s the last day for the stack today. Buy today for $47.95 within six hours and get my APPropriate Behaviour, along with books on running software businesses, building test-driven developers, and all sorts of software stacks including Ruby, … Continue reading
Posted in advancement of the self, books
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Ultimate Programmer Super Stack Reloaded
Remember remember the cough 6th of November, when APPropriate Behaviour joined a wealth of other learning material for software engineers in a super-discounted bundle called the Ultimate Programmer Super Stack? It’s happening again! This is a five-day flash sale, with … Continue reading
Posted in advancement of the self, books
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The Fragile Manifesto
A lot of what I’ve been reading and thinking about of late is about the agile backlash. More speed, lower velocity reflects on IT teams pursuing “deliver more/newer IT” at the cost of “help the company achieve its mission”. Grooming … Continue reading
Input-Output Maps are Strongly Biased Towards Simple Outputs
About this paper Input-Output Maps are Strongly Biased Towards Simple Outputs, Kamaludin Dingle, Chico Q. Camargo and Ard A. Louis, Nature Communications 9, 761 (2018). Notes On Saturday I went to my alma mater’s Morning of Theoretical Physics, which was … Continue reading
Posted in academia, AI
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