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4 days ago
It's a real book . Now... that this book exists is not that strange. My question, though, is as follows: Who else would it be for?
9 days ago
There was a feathered serpent in ancient times. He traveled around the globe in a ship that could cross the sea, the sky, and even take him to the heavens to visit the intelligences who lived in the stars. Wherever he went, he sewed the seeds of culture. He taught of astronomy, agriculture, sanitation, language, and mathematics. He left behind pale-faced servants to oversee the construction of great megalithic structures which were, themselves, embodiments of the knowledge he carried. Everything we are today, we owe to this being of proto-history. Does that sound implausible to you? It may, in fact, just be a myth that was believed by many an ancient tribe. It may be a folk memory of something a lot more mundane. It may be true. Whatever the case, it is about a million times more probable than what a lot of contemporary professionals in the software industry believe today. The notion of "test-driven development," has proliferated in such a way as to create a ...
10 days ago
As I was working on the course book for my course on how to achieve Database Agility, I noticed something: a lot of good design practices map directly to Lean principles. Not just that they are consistent with them; certain practices are actually instantiations of Lean principles in the small. I'm not claiming to be the first one to have discovered this. It is just the first time that I have ever thought of or heard this. So let's look at the first principle: value. What does "value" mean? It means a lot of things to a lot of people but, to Lean thinkers, it has a very specific meaning: value is something a customer wants or needs. In other words: we start by figuring out how we can fulfill a need, then work backwards from there to build a product. How does this map into software development? One obvious practice that comes to mind is programming by intention, a.k.a. "top-down programming." Programming by intention ...
32 days ago
What kind of pizza joint closes at eight but leaves their open sign turned on for a few minutes after they are closed? Actually... what kind of pizza place closes at eight at all? Whichever idiot manager or executive made that call should be fired. You don't "save" money by turning away paying customers. Die.
66 days ago
I have downtime. It's uncommon but it happens. Most people who know me know that I like to play casual games in my scant spare time. I found a neat new one called Bubble Blaster. Why do you care? Well, there's a lesson in this game. This is the first bubble popping game I've found that has a built-in opponent and that changes all of the foces. In this game, you are working toward a goal (highest score) and the opponent is working toward that same goal. You and your opponent have the option to do a number of things: Attempt to improve your own scores - widening or narrowing the score gap in your favor. Work against your opponent - defending the score gap. Do nothing - acting has a cost so wait for an opportunity. There are two lessons to be learned from this game: Carefully define and work toward value . Favor a little value now over a lot of it later . Both of these lessons also depend on the notion of position . Your position is ...
