The Pure Tech Side is the Dark Side. I hate it when I read something that draws out my desire to compare myself to others. Anyway, interesting discussion, and I certainly have experienced what the author is discussing myself. I like to think I have a focus on concretely building things, but then again, I recognize my own latent fears of becoming an ( Read more... )

Passages to Meritocracy discusses admissions at elite institutions and the market of "admissions consultants" to help people game the system ( Read more... )

Thumbs Down for Clojure - wow..., look, I'm all for quality and Quality and purity and all that myself. Really, I am, but, um, I use stuff that sucks all the time. Someone should point out that Lisp isn't mining the materials and running the factories(Skynet AI style factories baby!) and designing his processor's either, so he needs to get with it ( Read more... )

This should be a longer post, but it won't be.

First, Fear is the mind-killer discusses ways to reduce fear in a software project. I like that the author points out that forcing us to to do the thing fear is one method of overcoming the problem(e.g. continuous integration), and the other way, which is very contradictory is by making failure less ( Read more... )

The first one is Cult of Done Manifesto. It is ironic that I saw this one, because yesterday I was just trying to explain to someone how I think Neoplatonism/Platonic Ideals cause extreme problems, and how I prefer Wabi-Sabi as kind of explicit design choice. Anyway, some interesting ideas there.

Speaking of getting distance and perspective: There ( Read more... )

Okay, in I hate to respond to a troll, I responded to an article griping about functional programming. Just to prove I have standards I didn't even link or respond to Programming Sucks! Or At Least, It Ought To. Well, I thought about it, but I didn't.

Seems I wasn't the only one annoyed by these two gems(gems of wrongness that is...).

Programming ( Read more... )

Big Ideas are not as important as Good Ideas

Of course, I think implementation of small details matters a whole lot(both externally visible ones and internal engineering ones). Basically, "Assembly of Japanese bicycle requires great peace of mind". Wabi-sabi. Eh, speaking of all that... I should get back to work...

First: Taming Perfectionism speaks to my dislike of Platonic ideals, and the imperfect as essential to beauty.

Second, sorta unrelated: DSL's: Definitely a bad idea! The article backpedals on the title, but you know what? Let's rephrase it: "Custom software: Definitely a bad idea.", yeah, most things suck, the flip side of that global perspective ( Read more... )