The service you build doesn’t do a thing. It participates in a thing.

Cognitive neuroscience likes to assign functions to parts of the brain. This bit does planning. This part does short term memory. This piece perceives faces. Does that bit really do planning? If you cut it out and held it, would it plan for you? No. And that other bit doesn’t perceive faces without messages from …

Read moreThe service you build doesn’t do a thing. It participates in a thing.

Developing software teaches us to design interfaces.

Developers talk about interfaces all the time. Even in the back end: APIs are crucial, because they let us connect our new programs into the world of existing software. They let us build on what exists. They let us build subsystems, and build higher-level systems using those. In real life, I talk about interfaces. An …

Read moreDeveloping software teaches us to design interfaces.