APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Category Archives: tool-support
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
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Classism in software engineering
I just heard someone using the phrase “first-class citizen” in a programming podcast, and that led me to ponder the use of that phrase. The podcast was Swift Package Manager SuperPowers from Empower Apps. Empower’s a great podcast, this is … Continue reading
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Second Brain
The idea of a second brain really hit home. Steven and I were doing some refactoring of some code in our Amiga podcast last night, and every time we moved something between files we had to remember which header files … Continue reading
Posted in advancement of the self, tool-support, whatevs
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On UML
A little context: I got introduced to UML in around 2008, at an employer who had a site licence for Enterprise Architect. I was sent on a training course run by a company that no longer exists called Sun Microsystems: … Continue reading
Posted in agile, architecture of sorts, design, software-engineering, sunw, tool-support
Tagged History of Software Engineering
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Anti-lock brakes
Chances are, if you bought a new car or even a new motorcycle within the last few years, you didn’t even get an option on ABS. It came as standard, and in your car was legally mandated. Anti-lock brakes work … Continue reading
Posted in tool-support, user-error
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Pairing in Github
In the world of free software, it’s good to appropriately credit contributors to your community for the work they do. git makes this hard when you pair program. I was at a hackathon recently, and while I didn’t make a … Continue reading
Posted in process, tool-support
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The balloon goes up
To this day, many Smalltalk projects have a hot air balloon in their logo. These reference the cover of the issue of Byte Magazine in which Smalltalk-80 was shared with the wider programming community. Modern Smalltalks all have a lot … Continue reading
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I love my Testsphere deck, from Ministry of Testing. I’ve twice seen Riskstorming in action, and the first time that I took part I bought a deck of these cards as soon as I got back to my desk. I’m … Continue reading
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Mapping software engineering tools
Despite the theory that everything can be done in software (and of course, anything that can’t be done could in principle be approximated using numerical methods, or fudged using machine learning), software engineering itself, the business of writing software, seems … Continue reading
Posted in architecture of sorts, tool-support
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Figurative Programming and Gloom: the [G]raphical [LOOM]
Donald Knuth is pretty cool. One of the books he wrote that I own and have actually read[*] is Literate Programming, in which he describes (among other things) weaving program text and documentation together in a single narrative. Two of … Continue reading
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