APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Author Archives: Graham
Programming, language
Programming languages represent two things: programming, and language. Programming languages were previously designed very much with the former in mind. For Algol-style, imperative languages, design followed one of a few, mathematically-led approaches: Other semantics are available: for example if you … Continue reading
Posted in tool-support
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I was wrong, 80 characters is fine
Do you remember when I said, in my 2019 post Why 80?, that “80 characters per line is a particular convention out of many that we know literally nothing about the benefit or cost of, even today”? Today I saw … Continue reading
Posted in design
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Re-evaluating second brains
Because my undergraduate Physics teaching drilled into me the importance of keeping a lab book, I’ve always kept notebooks throughout my professional career too. If I want to know (and I’m not sure why I would) what process I created … Continue reading
Type safety, undefined behaviour, and us
There appears to be a shift towards programming languages that improve safety by providing an expressive type system, automatic memory management, and no gaps in the specification that lead to “undefined behaviour”. If your program is consistent with the logic … Continue reading
On legitimacy and software engineering
More than 400,000 software engineers have lost their jobs in the last couple of years, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s really significantly more than half a million as some won’t have been documented anywhere that the tracker project saw. … Continue reading
Posted in academia, software-engineering
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On association
My research touches on the professionalisation (or otherwise) of software engineering, and particularly the association (or not) of software engineers with a professional body, or with each other (or not) through a professional body. So what’s that about? In Engagement … Continue reading
Your reminder that “British English” and “American English” are fictional constructs
Low-stakes conspiracy theory: they were invented by word processing marketers to justify spell-check features that weren’t necessary. Evidence: the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford being in Britain) entry for “-ise” suffix’s first sense is “A frequent spelling of -ize suffix, suffix … Continue reading
Posted in Englisc
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On Scarcity
It’s called scarcity, and we can’t wait to see what you do with it. Let’s start with the important bit. I think that over the last year, with acceleration toward the end of the year, I have heard of over … Continue reading
Posted in software-engineering
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Transcendence
I was at the RSE conference in Newcastle, along with many people whom I have met, worked with, and enjoyed talking to in the past. Many more people whom I have met, worked with, and enjoyed talking to in the … Continue reading
The Image Model
I was reflecting on things that I know now, a couple of decades in to my career, that I wish I had been told at the beginning. Many things came to mind, but the most immediate from a technological perspective … Continue reading
