APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Author Archives: Graham
Scripting confusion
LaTeX (and TeX, for that matter), syntax is relatively consistent, and uses a lot of backslashes. Bourne shell syntax is somewhat inconsistent, and also uses backslashes. Regular expression syntax I seem almost perversely disinclined to remember, and definitely sometimes often … Continue reading
Posted in LaTeX
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I only have 17 years of experience, but every point on this list accords with my experience. I’ve made my own attempt to catalogue things software developers should know (that are not writing code), but this is a succinct and … Continue reading
The “return a command” trick This is a nice trick, but we need a phrase for that thing where you implement extreme late binding of functions by invoking an active function that selects the function you want based on its … Continue reading
The missing principle in agile software development
The biggest missing feature in the manifesto for agile software development and the principles behind it is anyone other than the makers and their customer. We get autonomous, self-organising delivery teams but without the sense of responsibility to a broader … Continue reading
Posted in agile, Responsibility
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Apple and Bug Bounties
I know that there are bigger problems to discuss about Apple’s approach to business and partnerships at the mo, but their handling of security researchers seems particularly cynical and hypocritical. See, for example, this post about four reported iPhone 0days … Continue reading
Posted in AAPL, Privacy, security
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In which I misunderstood Objective-C
I was having a think about this short history of Objective-C, and it occurred to me that perhaps I had been thinking about ObjC wrong. Now, I realise that by thinking about ObjC at all I mark myself out as … Continue reading
Posted in cocoa, design, freesoftware, gnustep, nextstep, objc
Tagged History of Software Engineering
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Why you didn’t like that thing that company made
There’s been a bit of a thing about software user experience going off the rails lately. Some people don’t like cross-platform software, and think that it isn’t as consistent, as well-integrated, or as empathetic as native software. Some people don’t … Continue reading
Posted in UI
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On programmer behaviours that make Scrum so bad
Respectable persons of this parish of Internet have been, shall we say, critical of Scrum and its ability to help makers (particularly software developers) to make things (particularly software). Ron Jeffries and GeePaw Hill have both deployed the bullshit word. … Continue reading
Sleep on it
In my experience, the best way to get a high-quality software product is to take your time, not crunch to some deadline. On one project I led, after a couple of months we realised that the feature goals (ALL of … Continue reading
Posted in process, team
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My proposal for scaling open source: don’t
I’ve had a number of conversations about what “we” in the “free software community” “need” to do to combat the growth in proprietary, user-hostile and customer-hostile business models like cloud user-generated content hosts, social media platforms, hosted payment platforms, videoconferencing … Continue reading
Posted in whatevs
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