Copy the Questions, not the Answers
Copying someone else’s team structure is like seeking the phone in the bathroom closet every time.
Year: 2021
Tracing makes a bug easy to spot
Today, I found a bug before I noticed it. Like, it was subtle, and so I wasn’t quite sure I saw it–maybe I hadn’t hit refresh yet? Later, I looked at the trace of my function and boom, there was a clear bug. Here’s the function with the bug. It responds to a request to … Read moreTracing makes a bug easy to spot
Software development pushes us to get better as people
Have you ever been on a really good software team? There’s this feeling of connectedness, of shared purpose. We know what we’re building, and we are skilled at building it together. This kind of team can grow some amazing software. When we work at making our team great like this, we look for new ways … Read moreSoftware development pushes us to get better as people
Symmathesies follow a power law, not a bell curve
At my first real job, around the turn of the millenium, software engineers were graded on a bell curve. On a scale of 1 to 5, most people should get 3s, with a lower number of 4s and 2s and a much lower number of 1s and 5s. The bell curve, also called the normal … Read moreSymmathesies follow a power law, not a bell curve
Product teams own capabilities, not (only) code.
As a software engineer, what is your job? and what is your value? On many teams, the work is “add features to this codebase.” We congratulate teams for moving JIRA tickets from “defined” to “delivered.” Meanwhile, the value to the business depends on value to the customers, or to people or software who in turn … Read moreProduct teams own capabilities, not (only) code.
Minimum path to a Jupyter Notebook in VSCode
Today I need to do some calculations for an article, so I want to persist them. The best way to do this is in a notebook, in Python. This Jupyter notebook thing that is exactly what I need. And VSCode recently added support for it! The installation instructions for Jupyter are all like “anaconda” and … Read moreMinimum path to a Jupyter Notebook in VSCode
What is this “product” you speak of?
We talk about “software products” and “product teams.” What does this even mean, “product?” It is not the definition I learned in school. Economics 101: the output of the economy is “goods and services.” Goods, also called “products,” are physical items that you can buy, take home, and have. Like, if you buy a rug, … Read moreWhat is this “product” you speak of?
Run an OpenTelemetry Collector locally in Docker
This is an experience report for my future reference (and yours). The OpenTelemetry Collector is useful for receiving trace data in whatever format and exporting it to the back-end of your choice for storage and querying. For instance, I wanted to receive traces over HTTP/JSON from this sneaky browser extensionLINK and send them to Honeycomb. … Read moreRun an OpenTelemetry Collector locally in Docker
Better coordination, or better software?
TL;DR: When different parts of an organization need to coordinate, it seems like a good idea to help them coordinate smoothly and frequently. Don’t. Help them coordinate less — more explicitly, less often. Software systems get big, and they have lots of parts, and those parts need to talk to each other. Maybe we’re building … Read moreBetter coordination, or better software?
Project to Product asks more of our software, and more of us
TL;DR: Projects ask teams do what is asked of them; Products ask teams to invent their work. This requires a different way of seeing the world, and not everyone can do it yet. Software is not an up-front investment that pays off over its use. Software is an ongoing concern, an intricate piece of a … Read moreProject to Product asks more of our software, and more of us