APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Category Archives: economics
On the efficient allocation of scarce resources with alternative uses
Most of what I know about “the economy” is outdated (Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes) or incorrect (the news) so I decided to read a textbook. Basic Economics, 5th Edition by Thomas Sowell is clear, modern, and generally … Continue reading
Posted in economics
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No, you can’t ignore politics
I wrote, a couple of years ago, about the fact that you can’t ignore ethics in software engineering. Your software is built for a reason, it’s used for a reason, you need to be aware of those reasons and whether … Continue reading
Posted in economics, Responsibility
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On the rhetorical cost of ownership
I’ve recently been talking about software engineering economics, in a very loose way, but so have other people. And now I understand that it’s annoying when people talk about it, and have decided to continue anyway. I’ve decided to continue … Continue reading
Posted in Business, economics
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On the business case for (or against) software
In the vexing problems, I dismissed the hard problems of computer science as being incidental to another problem: we can’t say what the value of our work is. That post contained plenty of questions, precisely because the subject is so … Continue reading
Posted in Business, economics
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The Vexing Problems in Programming
I admit it, I’ve been on the internet for quite a while (I could tell you that my ICQ number is 95941970, but I haven’t logged in for years) and my habits haven’t changed. I still regularly get technology news … Continue reading
Posted in Business, economics, Responsibility
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The other pink dollar
How did (a very broad and collective) we go from selling NeXT at $440M to selling Tumblr at $1.1B, in under two decades? Why was Sun Microsystems, one of the most technologically advanced companies in the valley, only worth two … Continue reading
Posted in Business, economics
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Intellectual property and software: the nuclear option
There are many problems that arise from thinking about the ownership of software and its design. Organisations like the Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative take advantage of the protections of copyright of source code – presumed to be … Continue reading
Posted in economics, IANAL
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The Wealth of Applications
Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations opens by discussing the division of labour. How people are able to get more done when they each pick a small part of the work to be … Continue reading
Posted in economics, futurology
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The lighter side of open source
In a recent post I talked about the apolitical, amoral nature of open source software and how it puts the interests of a small programming class before the interests of the broad collection of people who interact with programmers’ output. … Continue reading
Posted in Business, economics
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Code longevity
I recently wrote about the impending centenary of applied computing; a time when we could reflect on the first hundred years to make it easier for people to progress beyond our position into the second hundred years. This necessitates looking … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, economics, software-engineering
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