Category Archives: Responsibility

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

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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 | 2 Comments

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 | 2 Comments

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 | 1 Comment

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

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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 | 2 Comments

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 | 1 Comment

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 | Leave a comment

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

Posted on by Graham | Leave a comment

Fuck. This. Shit.

Enough with the subtle allusions of the previous posts. What’s going on here is not right. It’s not right that I get to pass as a member of the group of people who can work in technology, while others have … Continue reading

Posted in advancement of the self, learning, Responsibility | Comments Off on Fuck. This. Shit.