Thoughts

Giving a Talk Over Zoom
I finally worked out how to overlay slides and stand up while giving a talk online
Apr 5, 2022

The Interview
The start of a (fictional) screenplay about the ridiculous state of programmer job interviews.
Feb 23, 2022

Learning a New Language (or anything, really…)
One of my students emailed me privately. She wanted to learn a new language over the summer, but she has “always had trouble finding structure and…
May 5, 2020

Where Does State Live?
Several people have questioned my description of when you should use dynamic components:
Jan 10, 2019

Elixir Project Structure

Enough already with project templates that look like the 1960’s org chart for MegaCorp

Jun 2, 2018

Splitting APIs, Servers, and Implementations in Elixir

I think the conventional way of structuring Elixir code could be improved by paying more attention to decoupling.

Jul 13, 2017

Testing Private Functions
I don’t think it’s wrong to test private functions. In fact, I think it can be beneficial.
Mar 31, 2017

We Perform State
I saw this sign over the weekend.
Jan 19, 2017

Pragdave 2.0
After almost 20 years working with Andy as The Pragmatic Programmers, and after 15 of those years publishing stuff with The Pragmatic Bookshelf, I’ve…
May 3, 2016

Personal Area Stereo
A couple of cheap speakers, a cheap amp, and a subwoofer turn into a very local sound field
Aug 6, 2015

Proud to be an American
After 25 years, I’m a US citizen
Nov 25, 2014

Thinking in Transforms—Handling Options
Implementing options as functions, and not flags, simplifies a bunch of code
Oct 5, 2014

Tony Benn’s Five Questions for the Powerful
No one has power: they are given it
Mar 14, 2014

Agile is Dead (Long Live Agility)
In which I stick my neck out and initiate my Agile-is-Dead phase
Mar 4, 2014

Pattern Matching and Parsing

It turns out that pattern matching and data structure decomposition are a wonderful tool for doing parsing of nonregular grammars (such as Markdown).

Feb 12, 2014

Telling, Asking, and the Power of Jargon
Vocabulary becomes jargon becomes shortcuts in communicating. Accuracy matters.
Feb 11, 2014

Reactive systems have no top
In which a dog points out I was writing megalomanic classes
Jan 4, 2014

Oft repeated, rarely heeded…
Dec 24, 2013

Followup to my EMail experiment

I discarded all email I received while on vacation. How did the experiment work?

Nov 12, 2011

So I’m trying an email experiment

How to reduce the burden of email build-up when you’re away

Apr 14, 2011

Some Compositions
A while back, I was asked during an interview what I’d do if I had three months off. I said I’d take piano lessons.
Jun 11, 2009

The ‘Language’ in Domain-Specific Language Doesn’t Mean English (or French, or Japanese, or …)
Target DSLs at the jargon of its users
Mar 10, 2008

Pipelines Using Fibers in Ruby 1.9—Part II
In the previous post, I developed a class called PipelineElement. This made it relatively easy to create…
Jan 1, 2008

Pipelines Using Fibers in Ruby 1.9
Users of the command line are familiar with the idea of building pipelines: a chain of simple commands strung together to the output of one becomes the input of the next.…
Dec 30, 2007

Paying Back
That’s how much was raised in charitable donations during the course of this weekend’s RailsConf.
May 21, 2007

Grapher: The Coolest App You Never Knew You Had
If you use OS X, then you own an application that’ll waste hours of your time. And it’s just sitting on your hard drive.
Mar 28, 2007

SYWTWAB 7: Reviewers, And How Not to Kill Them
This is the seventh of a…
Mar 21, 2007

Agile Mastery
I’m in London, having just finished presenting at QCon.
Mar 18, 2007

SYWTWAB 6: Wrandom Writing Wrules
This is the sixth of a…
Mar 12, 2007

SYWTWAB 5: Finding Your Voice
This is the fifth of a…
Mar 11, 2007

SYWTWAB 4: Readers on Your Shoulders
This is the fourth of a…
Mar 8, 2007

SYWTWAB 3: The Hero’s Journey: Are You Experienced?
This is the third of a…
Mar 7, 2007

SYWTWAB 2: The Hero’s Journey
This is the second a…
Mar 5, 2007

SYWTWAB 1: So You Want to Write a Book?
First in a series of notes for potential authors. Here we look at your motivation–why are you writing it?
Mar 4, 2007

Some Agile History
Some hand written notes from Snowbird
Feb 24, 2007

Cheese on Toast

There’s a secret ingredient (and a blowtorch) involved.

Feb 6, 2007

Two Hands Bad: The Frustrations of Dreyfus Level One
A while back an interviewer asked what I would do if I had three…
Feb 4, 2007

Great advice from Chris Pine…
If this makes sense to you right now, then stop thinking about it! You might screw it up! ;) Otherwise…don’t sweat it too much. Move on; let your subconscious do the work…
Dec 5, 2005

Magical Thinking
I’m reading Augusten Burroughs’ wonderful “Magical Thinking” on the plane to Boston. It opens with a definition:
Dec 1, 2005

Is Ruby Better Than…?
As I speak about Ruby with folks around the world, a question comes up with depressing regularity: “is Ruby better than Xyz?”, where Xyz is…
Sep 15, 2005

The Wiki Way of Writing

Leaving dangling cross references when writing a book is like leaving dangling hyperlinks in a Wiki—they’re both a promise and a question.

Mar 16, 2005

Failure and Surgeons
Glenn Vanderburg pointed me at a wonderful article, The Physical Genius by Malcolm Gladwell, originally published in the New Yorker in 1999.
Feb 27, 2005

Weeding out Bugs
If programming is like gardening, then weeding has much to teach us about debugging.
Aug 11, 2004

Nice Interface in a Storm
This UI also teaches you what’s happening behind the scenes
Mar 11, 2004

Mechanism and Policy
There is no one-best-way to design interfaces. Instead there is mechanism and there is policy
Nov 25, 2003

My Kind of Warranty
why the luck stiff’s warranty
Oct 14, 2003

Prowling the ruins of ancient software

Famous programs from just a generation or two ago are in danger of disappearing from human ken, forever.

Jul 29, 2003

Truths from the Declaration of Independence
Why sufferable wins
Jul 4, 2003

Debating with Knives
A fun technique to encourage groups to investigate all sides of an issue
Jun 17, 2003

Construction Methods
Don’t override your constructors. Use construction methods.
Jun 11, 2003

The Joy of Lego

Can we build systems with emergent behavior, and which are safe, by adding invariants and contracts?

Jun 1, 2003

First Kill the Architects
Why do we think about architecture, and should we bother?
May 6, 2003

On Getting Involved
Some wisdom from Francis Ford Coppola
Apr 16, 2003

If you haven’t heard Tom Lehrer’s Elements, click now
Apr 16, 2003

Artifacting
Let’s value the process, not the product
Mar 23, 2003

The Absence of Grace
That which is overdesigned, too highly specific, anticipates outcome; the anticipation guarantees, if not failure, the absence of grace.
Feb 22, 2003

Passing Information to Our Children’s Children’s … Children
There’s a great article in the January 2003 CACM which describes some very long-term data storage technology (Organic Data Memory using the DNA Approach).
Feb 6, 2003

Learning from Mistakes
Aviation places great emphasis on reporting and analyzing mistakes. Can we developers learn something from them?`
Feb 2, 2003
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