Author Archives: Graham

About Graham

I make it faster and easier for you to create high-quality code.

Why I don’t have a favourite programming language

This is my take on Ilya Sher’s similar post, though from a different context. He is mainly interested in systems programming, I have mostly written user apps and backend services, and also some developer tools. I originally thought that I … Continue reading →

Posted in tool-support | Leave a comment

Free Software should welcome contributions by Apple, Google

It started with a toot from the FSF: Freedom means not #madebygoogle or #madebyapple, it means #madebythousandsoffreesoftwarehackers #GNU This post is an expansion on my reply: @fsf as an FSF Associate I’m happy to use software made by Google or … Continue reading →

Posted in AAPL, freesoftware | Leave a comment

Recommend me some books or articles

I’ve been looking for something to read on these topics, can you help? a history of the Unix wars (the ‘workstation’ period involving Sun, HP, Apollo, DEC, IBM, NeXT and SGI primarily, but really everything starting from AT&T up to … Continue reading →

Posted in books, learning | 3 Comments

On books

I’d say that if there’s one easy way to summarise how I work, it’s as an information focus. I’m not great at following a solution all the way to the bitter end so you should never let me be a … Continue reading →

Posted in advancement of the self, books, edjercashun, learning | Leave a comment

Give me an S

S – I can find the thing I need to change. O – My change will either be an extension or a replacement. L – My replacement or extension needs to be a drop-in change. I – Here’s what my … Continue reading →

Posted in code-level, OOP | Leave a comment

Security consultancy from the other side

I used to run an application security consultancy business, back before the kinds of businesses who knew they needed to consider application security had got past assessing creating mobile apps. Whoops! Something that occasionally, nay, often happened was that clients … Continue reading →

Posted in Crypto, Encryption, Policy | Leave a comment

Choose boring employers

Amusingly, my previous post choose boring employees was shared to hacker news under the off-by-one erroneous title choose boring employers. That seemed funny enough to run with, but what does it mean to choose boring employers? One interpretation is that … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture of sorts, Business | Leave a comment

Choose boring employees

An idea I’ve heard from many directions recently is that “we” (whoever they are) “need to be on the latest tech stack in order to attract developers”. And yes, you do attract developers that way. Developers who want to be … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture of sorts, Business | 1 Comment

In which GNUstep confuses and ultimately disappoints

I’m not the most hardcore of GNUstep people, but I’m certainly somewhat invested. I’ve been building apps, lurking in lists, and contributing code on and off for around 13 years, including a job working with a few of the maintainers. … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture of sorts, gnustep, qt | 1 Comment

On the “advances” in web development since 1995

The first “web application” I worked on was written in a late version of WebObjects, version 4.5. An HTTP request was handled by an “adaptor” layer that chose a controller based on the parameters of the request, you could call … Continue reading →

Posted in futurology, WebObjects | 1 Comment