I don’t want the best

“Which database is the best?” Superlatives are dangerous. They pressure you to line up the alternatives in a row, judge them all, make the perfect decision. This implies that databases can be compared based on internal qualities. Performance, reliability, scalability, integrity, what else is there? We know better than that. We recognize that relational databases, … Read moreI don’t want the best

Correctness

How important is correctness? This is a raging debate in our industry today. I think the answer depends strongly on the kind of problem a developer is trying to solve: is the problem contracting or expanding? A contracting problem is well-defined, or has the potential to be well-defined with enough rigorous thought. An expanding problem … Read moreCorrectness

Stacking responsibilities

TL;DR – Support decisions with automation and information; give people breadth of responsibility; let them learn from the results of their choices. When I started writing software in 1999, The software development cycle was divided into stages, ruled over by project management. Business people decided what to build to support the customers. Developers coded it. … Read moreStacking responsibilities