Category Archives: learning

YX problem

Software people are always all up in the XY problem: someone asks about how to do X when what they’re really trying to solve is Y. I find the YX problem much more frustrating: where software people decide that they … Continue reading

Posted in learning | 2 Comments

Cap in Hand

You’re probably aware that between this blog, De Programmatica Ipsum, and various books, I write a lot about software engineering and software engineers. You may know that I also present a podcast on software engineering topics, and co-host two live … Continue reading

Posted in advancement of the self, books, learning, meta-waffle, podcast | Leave a comment

Discipline doesn’t scale

If programmers were just more disciplined, more professional, they’d write better software. All they need is a code of conduct telling them how to work like those of us who’ve worked it out. The above statement is true, which is … Continue reading

Posted in C++, learning, software-engineering | Tagged | 6 Comments

Gently HURDing the side projects

I find it problematic that even at times when I’m avoiding computing outside of work, I still have ideas about things I would like to try out or improve in computing “if I had the time”. I tend to capture … Continue reading

Posted in GNU, learning, OOP, techradar | Leave a comment

All the things

It’s been a long time since I had a side project, or one that didn’t get abandoned very early on. I tend to get sidetracked by other thoughts about computing, or think “while I’m doing this, I’m leaving that unsolved” … Continue reading

Posted in advancement of the self, documentation, learning, techradar | Leave a comment

The Atoms of Programming

In the world of physics, there are many different models that can be used, though typically each of them has different applicability to different contexts. At the small scale, quantum physics is a very useful model, Newtonian physics will yield … Continue reading

Posted in learning, philosophy after a fashion, software-engineering | 15 Comments

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

Working Effectively with Legacy Code

I gave a talk to my team at ARM today on Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers. Here are some notes I made in preparation, which are somewhat related to the talk I gave. This may be the … Continue reading

Posted in advancement of the self, books, code-level, learning, software-engineering, TDD | Leave a comment

I didn’t study computer science at school or university, and still manage to work as a programmer. That is not to say that I don’t need to know some things that are taught on computer science courses. Just this week … Continue reading

Posted on by Graham | Leave a comment