All around us, we are surrounded by crappy software. Pension funds that are stumbling along using decades old batch scripts with faulty assumptions. Credit agencies leaking over a hundred million social security numbers and other confidential data. And not to even mention the tons of buggy and frustrating software that we see all around us, … Continue reading Why Is There So Much Crap Software In The World
If Founders Treated Their Investors The Same Way They Treated Their Employees
Founder: Hey Joe! How are you doing? Everyone here loved meeting you, and we would really love to have you on board as our investor! We really respect your expertise, and think this could be a great partnership. What do you say? Investor: Glad to hear! Can you give me more details about how much … Continue reading If Founders Treated Their Investors The Same Way They Treated Their Employees
Preventing Software Rot
I recently came across a story that is just as amusing as it is shocking: One of my clients is responsible for several of the world's top 100 pension funds. They had a nightly batch job that ... crashed. No one knew what was wrong at first. This batch job had never, ever crashed before, … Continue reading Preventing Software Rot
Bayes vs Frequentists – An Empirical Test In Code
You and your friend are walking by a magic store and find a trick coin. You have no clue how biased the coin is, and decide that all possible levels of bias are equally likely. In order to estimate the level of bias, you toss it 14 times and end up with 10 heads. Your … Continue reading Bayes vs Frequentists – An Empirical Test In Code
When Feature Flags Do And Don’t Make Sense
Over the past years, I’ve worked in multiple teams adopting very different strategies when it comes to feature flags. I’ve seen the pros and cons of both, and over time, I found myself disagreeing with any fundamentalist position on their use. There is a lot of nuance to this topic, and I think it is … Continue reading When Feature Flags Do And Don’t Make Sense
The Birth of Legacy Software – How Change Aversion Feeds On Itself
Here's a common pattern that I see play out very often in software teams: There is a need to change the existing system behavior to accomplish new functionality. The software engineer looking at the task realizes that the existing design isn't well suited to the change needed. They suggest design changes and refactoring, as part … Continue reading The Birth of Legacy Software – How Change Aversion Feeds On Itself
Abstractions Are In The Eye Of The Beholder
One of the most common debates I see, is on the right level of abstraction to use when coding. The line between over-engineered and unnecessarily-verbose is a very fuzzy one, and is the source of never-ending debates. Unfortunately, this debate is unlikely to ever get resolved. For one simple reason. There is no universally right … Continue reading Abstractions Are In The Eye Of The Beholder
Nuances of Overloading and Overriding in Java
I've been programming in Java for over half a decade, and thought I knew how overloading and overriding worked. It was only once I started thinking of and writing up the following corner cases, that I realized I didn't know it nearly as well as I thought. In an effort to gamify these nuances, I've … Continue reading Nuances of Overloading and Overriding in Java
Alert Fast
A dichotomy I often see in many different teams and projects, is the dilemma between “failing fast” and “failing gracefully.” Here’s a simplified example of what I see far too often, and gets to the core of the dilemma. public String generateGreeting() { try { return “Hello ” + getName(); } catch (Exception e) { … Continue reading Alert Fast
Hiring is Broken And Yours Is Too
I can't keep track of the number of articles I've read about hiring in the past few years. Inevitably, they all follow the exact same format. First, they claim that hiring is broken. Next, they describe the hiring practices used by XYZ company. The present an extremely thorough analysis of every possible way in which … Continue reading Hiring is Broken And Yours Is Too
