APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
FSF
Author Archives: Graham
Meaningless Vapid Catchphrase
On the 4th December 2013, I said: Urge to search the archives for papers on Model-View-Controller and write an essay on its ever-changing meaning in programmer discourse. Do you have any idea how much work that is? I do, now. … Continue reading
Posted in MVC, OOP
2 Comments
The First Flaw
As she left her desk at the grandiosely-named United States Robotics, Susan reflected on her relationship with the engineering team she was about to meet. Many of its members were juvenile and frivolous in her opinion, and she refused to … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Responsibility, social-science
Leave a comment
It’s about solving problems
As ever, there’s a touchstone issue on the programmers’ corner of the intarwebs (the programmers’ corner is actually the same intarwebs everyone else is using, just we model it with geometry so it can have a corner). Here it is: … Continue reading
Posted in learning, Responsibility, TDD
Leave a comment
Programming as a societal roadblock
Introduction People who make software are instigators of and obstacles to social interactions. We are secondarily technologists, in that we apply technology to enable and block these transactions. This article explores the results. Programmers as arbiters of death I would … Continue reading
Posted in Responsibility
Comments Off on Programming as a societal roadblock
ClassBrowser: warts and all
I previously gave a sneak peak of ClassBrowser, a dynamic execution environment for Objective-C. It’s not anything like ready for general use (in fact it can’t really do ObjC very well at all), but it’s at the point where you … Continue reading
Posted in C++, code-level, Mac, OOP, software-engineering, TDD, tool-support
Leave a comment
Standing at the Crossroads
A while back I wrote Conflicts in my Mental Model of Objective-C, in which I listed a few small scale dichotomies or cognitive dissonances that plagued my notion of my work. I just worked out what the overall picture is, … Continue reading
Posted in AAPL, iPad, OOP, Responsibility
Leave a comment
A sneaky preview of ClassBrowser
Let me start with a few admissions. Firstly, I have been computering for a good long time now, and I still don’t really understand compilers. Secondly, work on my GNUstep Web side-project has tailed off for a while, because I … Continue reading
Posted in advancement of the self, C++, code-level, learning, OOP, software-engineering, tool-support
Comments Off on A sneaky preview of ClassBrowser
By your _cmd
This post is a write-up of a talk I gave at Alt Tech Talks: London on the Objective-C runtime. Seriously though, you should’ve been there. The Objective-C runtime? That’s the name of the library of C functions that implement the … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, OOP
Comments Off on By your _cmd
The Ignoble Programmer
Two programmers are taking a break from their work, relaxing on a bench in the park across from their office. As they discuss their weekend plans, a group of people jog past, each carrying their laptop in a yoke around … Continue reading
Posted in advancement of the self, learning, social-science
Leave a comment
Agile application security
There’s a post by clever security guy Jim Bird on Appsec’s Agile Problem: how can security experts participate in fast-moving agile (or Agile™) projects without either falling behind or dragging the work to a halt? I’ve been the Appsec person … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
