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Chiron Codex: helping software engineers become centaurs. APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Category Archives: Responsibility
No, you can’t ignore politics
I wrote, a couple of years ago, about the fact that you can’t ignore ethics in software engineering. Your software is built for a reason, it’s used for a reason, you need to be aware of those reasons and whether … Continue reading
Posted in economics, Responsibility
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I make mistakes for a living
As a team lead, my job is to make all the mistakes on my team. I’m responsible for each one of them. I’m also responsible for deciding what we do about them, whether that’s to ensure that they can’t happen … Continue reading
Posted in Responsibility
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Learning about software freedom
On the front page of Hacker News at the moment is a post on The Three Software Freedoms. It does away with the Free Software Foundation’s Freedom Zero: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose. … Continue reading
Posted in freesoftware, Responsibility
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The Vexing Problems in Programming
I admit it, I’ve been on the internet for quite a while (I could tell you that my ICQ number is 95941970, but I haven’t logged in for years) and my habits haven’t changed. I still regularly get technology news … Continue reading
Posted in Business, economics, Responsibility
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The Principled Programmer
[Note: this post represents the notes made for my talk at iOS Dev UK 2014. As far as I’m aware, the talk isn’t available on the tubes.] The Principled Programmer The first thing to be aware of is that this … Continue reading
Posted in Responsibility, Talk
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Selectively caring
When Choose Boring Technology was published earlier this year, it hit home for me. If you’re spending money trying to ship, say, a music notation app, there’s no point in rewriting the operating system scheduler. Let’s say every company gets … Continue reading
Posted in Responsibility
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Criticising the Four Freedoms
The core principle of Free Software is that people who use software retain certain freedoms, unlike the situation with proprietary software in which all of the freedom associated with the software remains with the vendor. Those are the Four Freedoms: … Continue reading
Posted in freesoftware, Responsibility
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But where to go?
I agree with John Gruber here: it’s not like Apple’s stuff has become worse than a competitor’s, it’s just that it’s not as good as I remember or expect. It could be, as Daniel Jalkut suggests, rose-tinted glasses[*]. I don’t … Continue reading
Posted in GNU, Responsibility, UNIX
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In which I resolve
When I was a student I got deeply into GNU and Linux. This has been covered elsewhere on this blog, along with the story that as Apple made the best UNIX, and the lab had NeXT computers, I went down … Continue reading
Posted in futurology, Responsibility
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Meritocracy is a myth. And our belief in it is holding back the tech industry from getting better. The intent to be meritocratic is not a myth, but we know what road is paved with good intentions. —from Tech’s Meritocracy … Continue reading
