APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Category Archives: Business
Forearmed
In researching my piece for the upcoming de Programmatica Ipsum issue on cloud computing, I had thoughts about Apple, arm, and any upcoming transition that didn’t fit in the context of that article. So here’s a different post, about that. … Continue reading
Posted in AAPL, arm, Business
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A question of focus
The problem with The Labrary is that I offer to do so many things – because I could do them, and do them well – that it can be hard to find the one thing I could do for you … Continue reading
Posted in advancement of the self, Business
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Solving the underlying problem
As a software engineer, it’s easy to get work engineering software. Well, maybe not easy, but relatively so: that is the kind of work that comes along most. The kind of work that people are confident I can do. That … Continue reading
Posted in Business
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Product teams: our products are not our products
Woah, too many products. Let me explain. No, it will take too long, let me summarise. Sometimes, people running software organisations call their teams “product teams”, and organise them around particular “products”. I do not believe that this is a … Continue reading
Posted in architecture of sorts, Business
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More speed, lower velocity
I frequently meet software teams who describe themselves as “high velocity”, they even have graphs coming from Jira to prove it, and yet their ability to ship great software, to delight their customers, or even to attract their customers, doesn’t … Continue reading
Posted in Business, performance, process, software-engineering
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More on freedom and licensing
Last month, I asked whether Freedom Zero is such a great idea, whether it’s OK to limit the freedom to use the software for any purpose if you dislike the purpose to which you believe someone will put it. I … Continue reading
Posted in Business, freesoftware, Responsibility
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On study-only licences
In my previous post, I mused on the value of Freedom Zero and of a non-free licence that allows for study but not for use: I think it would have to be a licence that enabled studying, sharing and modification … Continue reading
Posted in Business
2 Comments
Choose boring employers
Amusingly, my previous post choose boring employees was shared to hacker news under the off-by-one erroneous title choose boring employers. That seemed funny enough to run with, but what does it mean to choose boring employers? One interpretation is that … Continue reading
Posted in architecture of sorts, Business
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Choose boring employees
An idea I’ve heard from many directions recently is that “we” (whoever they are) “need to be on the latest tech stack in order to attract developers”. And yes, you do attract developers that way. Developers who want to be … Continue reading
Posted in architecture of sorts, Business
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The worst phrase in software marketing
“Rewritten from the ground up”. Please. Your old version mostly worked, except for those few corner cases that I’d learned how to work around. Now I don’t know whether the stuff that did work does work now, and I don’t … Continue reading
Posted in Business
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