Blog Archives

This post is all about whether dependencies are expensive or valuable to a software project (the answer is “yes” in a lot of cases). It was motivated by Benefits of dependencies in software projects as a function of effort by … Continue reading →

Here we talk about things that can go wrong in a whole software organisation such that even if everybody does their job to the best of their ability, and they have a good ability, the result is far from optimal. … Continue reading →

From my anosmic isolation chamber as I’ve got the ‘rona! I talk about how many of the things software engineers think they should or shouldn’t be doing probably don’t have any impact on the success or failure of the software … Continue reading →

I explore the theme of community and the difficulty I have with feeling like a member of a community of technologists. This was motivated by Joy, or Not by Ron Jeffries. The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry Society of … Continue reading →

An episode about the philosophy of software engineering.

@sharplet asked me a few questions, and you can too! The theme music is Blue-Eyed Stranger. Evidence-Based Software Engineering Using R. Median household income in the UK in January 2021 was £29,900 (I said “about £28,000”). Median software engineer salary … Continue reading →

I muse on a concept I’ve been thinking about for a long time: that software engineering is trapped within the confines of the fixed-width text editing paradigm. This was motivated by a discussion with Orta about his Shiki Twoslash project … Continue reading →

I contextualise the x86_64 to arm64 transition by talking about all the other times Apple have switched CPUs in their personal computers; the timeline is roughly 6502-m68k-ppc-ppc+i386-ppc64-i386-x86_64-arm64. Sorry, Newton fans!

In which I posit that software freedom is a small part of a bigger picture. Free Software Foundation Free Software Foundation of Europe Software Freedom Conservancy Electronic Frontier Foundation [objc retain]; Just Consequentialism and Computing (paywalled; accessible link) Use the … Continue reading →

This episode is about technology, culture, community, and career. No links because it’s mostly a personal history and there’s only so much self-promotion I can fit in one episode. That said! If you enjoy this podcast and would like to … Continue reading →