Viewing profile — matfil

The presence of bugs doesn't necessarily indicate useless software. If tests are failing (or flaky...), that's probably something to look at at some point, but that doesn't necessa…

One of the most annoying things to deal with in a CI workflow is flaky tests I guess another controversial opinion: this is a problem with the idea of CI (or at least how we work w…

where are code reviews A valid answer might be "nowhere". Code review is a hot topic at the moment, but I'm pretty sure a lot of software I've found useful over the years was creat…

A side effect of this is that if your individual productivity goes up, your real wage might go up, but if your whole industry’s productivity goes up, it’ll be mitigated by this eff…

There's an argument for valuing ten years of Silverlight experience -- especially if it includes some gnarly projects where the framework isn't really holding your hand that much -…

I'd certainly agree that if a quick fix starts to accrete complexity, that's good evidence that it's time for a rethink. "ad-hoc modifications", I'm less certain about. How often i…

Over the years I’ve learned few things are more permanent than a temporary solution. This is something your hear in a lot of places. Often (not always) it seems to be spoken with r…

If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing yourself.

This can be taken to extremes. Some years ago, a popular historical novelist told me something along the lines of "I often talk to people who say 'I'm writing a historical novel', …

I make a point of re-reading Alan Perlis' preface from time to time: https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/... Fun is important, and it seems all too easy to …

Thanks! Lighthouses all automated around here, but some of the others sound interesting...

(Not the OP, but this question does resonate...) It's a good set of questions to keep in mind, but I'm not sure it always leads to a feasible course of action. What I like is worki…

I'd love to go to Antarctica. However... skimming through some of those, they actually look like pretty typical "work on a team" positions ( e.g. "...technical guidance and mentori…

- weekly 10% self-directed and dedicated research time - additional research time with sign-off from a lead These are both really great ideas, and have the advantage that they work…

A coworker from a previous job said something along the lines of “How much work is getting done by teams debating tabs vs spaces?” That's a good question, but having agreed that su…

That's almost word-for-word what I like. I'm actually pretty certain this approach, with the TODO file in VC, would work fine at least up until 4-6 developers, as long as everyone …

I wonder what those other metrics are. A big one is that managers are de facto judged by the size of their team (and, for more senior ones, the size of the tree underneath them, to…

While I wouldn't necessarily say that problems in this style are the right way to recruit in 2019, something equivalent to: Please do not use an existing networking framework (e.g.…

I actually quite enjoy the true mysteries that nobody has touched for years. It's a situation where you're expected to slink off into a corner and swear quietly for a few days, and…

unnecessary competence What on earth do you mean by this? It sounds rather like advocating just doing the minimum you can, for the sake of harmony.

Perhaps some environmental changes have caused people to think more about whether or not they're introverts. Open offices seem like a strong candidate to me (but there might well b…

Go. I don't feel the need for yet another language without conditional expressions. (More generally: I'm pretty firmly in the camp of "terse code tends to be easier to read and rea…

The key is to be an independent craftsman, and not e.g. lay carpets as an employee (at the businesses pace and mercy), or stand all day, etc... I think most work is -- at the very …

I'm also in the "breaking things down doesn't really help" camp, so while I recognise that it works for some people, I do think it's possible that "just break things down even furt…

It's a tough question, and I think depends a lot on what you're looking for. For the specific case of work ethic in the sense of committing deeply to projects you believe in, then …