APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Category Archives: software-engineering
Floating point numbers aren’t weird
When people say “floating point numbers are weird”, they typically mean that the IEEE 754 floating point representation for numbers doesn’t meet their needs, or maybe that it meets their needs but it is surprising in its behaviour because it … Continue reading
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Still no silver bullet?
In his 1986 article No Silver Bullet—Essence and Accident in Software Engineering, Fred Brooks suggests that there’ll never be a single tool, technique, or fad that realises an order-of-magnitude improvement in software engineering productivity. His reason is simple: if there … Continue reading
Posted in design, software-engineering
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On software engineering hermeneutics
When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less. Humpty-Dumpty in Alice through the Looking Glass In my recent round of TDD clarifications, one surprising experience is that folks out … Continue reading
On rational myths
In my research field, one characteristic of institutions is their “rational myths”; ideas that people tell each other are true, and believe are true, but which are under-explored, unverified, and under-challenged. Belief in these myths leads to supposedly rational actions … Continue reading
Posted in academia, social-science, software-engineering
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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
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
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More detail on software requirements
My talk at AppDevCon discussed the Requirements Trifecta but turned it into a Quadrinella: you need leadership vision, market feedback, and technical reality to all line up as listed in the trifecta, but I’ve since added a fourth component. You … Continue reading
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Even more on generalist software engineering
There is a difference between a generalist software engineer, and a polyglot programmer. What is that difference, and why did I smoosh the two together in yesterday’s post? A polyglot programmer is a programmer who can use, or maybe has … Continue reading
Posted in software-engineering
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