#engineering (31 links)
The cost of writing code collapsed, and the cost of reviewing, fixing and operating it is following, and I'm assuming it gets there. What's left of making software is finding out what people actually want, defining it precisely, and making it pleasant to use. That cost is per piece of software and doesn't transfer, so as the amount of software goes to infinity, which it will because there's no ceiling on demand, that cost becomes the whole job.
- The Last Technical Interview. Today we will pour one out for the… | by Steve Yegge | Medium steve-yegge.medium.com
Great diagnosis, not great solution.
- Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity terriblesoftware.org
I think there’s something quietly screwing up a lot of engineering teams. In interviews, in promotion packets, in design reviews: the engineer who overbuilds gets a compelling narrative, but the one who ships the simplest thing that works gets… nothing.
Thanks James,
- Decentralizing quality matthewstrom.com
Why moving judgment to the edges wins in the long run
- Understanding the Tiger Team Approach | Lucidchart Blog lucidchart.com
A tiger team is a specialized, cross-functional team brought together to solve or investigate a specific problem or critical issue.
Missed this first time around. The demo technique is uncannily similar to how we've ended up working. This is a wonderful articulation.
- How I ship projects at big tech companies seangoedecke.com
Ship it.
Design Engineers work closely with designers to implement designs, skipping the traditional handoff process. Instead of handing off a completed design, a Designer sketches the start and iterates with a Design Engineer in Figma or code to produce the final design. Lots of technical exploration is done to push the designs.
- Code With Engineering Playbook microsoft.github.io
- Rules of Machine Learning: | ML Universal Guides | Google Developers developers.google.com
Rule #1: Don’t be afraid to launch a product without machine learning.
- Design Docs at Google industrialempathy.com
One of the key elements of Google's software engineering culture is the use of defining software designs through design docs. These are relatively informal documents that the primary author or authors of a software system or application create before they embark on the coding project. The design doc documents the high level implementation strategy and key design decisions with emphasis on the trade-offs that were considered during those decisions.
- What I learned as a developer from accidents in space—Martian Chronicles, Evil Martians’ team blog evilmartians.com
How Soviet space tales help the creator of PostCSS to follow best practices in development.
- How to build a PaaS for 1500 engineers srvaroa.github.io
Every Platform team should be asking themselves: what is our differentiator? What do we offer than makes it worthwhile for our company to invest in our team, rather than throwing those engineers at the product?
- When a rewrite isn’t: rebuilding Slack on the desktop slack.engineering
<blockquote>The final step — and the most important one for our purposes — was to create a modern-only version of Slack that would start out incomplete but gradually work its way toward feature completeness as modules and interfaces were modernized.</blockquote>
- The Coming Boeing Bailout? mattstoller.substack.com
- The Elements of UI Engineering - Overreacted overreacted.io
If you worked a user interface, you’ve likely dealt with at least some of these challenges — either directly or using a library.
- code like you don’t have the time (tecznotes) mike.teczno.com
[this is good] and I will remember more of it in future.
- flair flair.zone
<blockquote>A reimagining of how your hvac system should work. It understands where you are and how to make you most comfortable. It also understands where you aren't, saving energy and lowering your bills.</blockquote>
- This wasn't a very good essay. The closing line sums up its problem: "We need to... | Hacker News news.ycombinator.com
<blockquote>Here's a more nuanced view: speed matters, and you can be really successful developing important, business-critical software by emphasizing speed over quality. If it's a problem domain you're particularly familiar with, especially if you have a lot of tools, frameworks, and libraries to help you, you can get an impressive amount of work done.
As you continue to work, you'll slow down. At some point—about six weeks is my guess—you'll actually be going slower than someone who's focused on quality. They'll speed up over time (asymptotically), and you'll continue to slow down (also asymptotically). You'll still be ahead of them, though, because you got so much done in that initial burst of energy. Your life will start to suck, though, and you'll be looking forward to when the project is done.
Eventually—about three to six months, I'd guess—you'll fall behind. You'll be going so slow that your initial advantage will have been erased. Luckily, you now get to hand the project off and start a new one. Win!
Three to seven years later, your code will be thrown away. It will be so expensive to change that it no longer makes economic sense to maintain. If it's still relevant, it will be rewritten at great expense and even greater opportunity cost.</blockquote>
Well said.
- Paying down (technical) debt in the departments and policy publishing platform | Inside GOV.UK insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk
- New Tweets per second record, and how | Twitter Blog blog.twitter.com
- cookin'/relaxin': A guide to building prototypes cookinrelaxin.com
This.
- WebHome < Main < Reprap reprap.org
"Instead of printing on bits of paper this 3D printer makes real, robust, mechanical parts. To give you an idea of how robust, think Lego bricks and you're in the right area. You could make lots of useful stuff, but interestingly you could also make most of the parts to make another 3D printer. That would be a machine that could copy itself." Want.
#design #tools #hacks #technology #hardware #prototyping #diy #electronics #engineering#fabrication#reprap - Engineers Are The Best Deal - So Stock Up On Them techcrunch.com
"Software engineers today are about 200-400% more productive than software engineers were 10 years ago because of open source software, better programming tools, common libraries, easier access to information, better education, and other factors. This means that one engineer today can do what 3-5 people did in 1999." And so say all of us.
"You’d think that with the futuristic and gravity defying creations they spawn, architects would be leading the vanguard of efficient working practices. It turns out they’re still stuck in the 90s, where sharing files and collaborating with partners and clients is done via CD and bike messenger, or – shock! horror! – even printouts sent by post." I don't find that surprising in the least. Woobius looks interesting, though.
A global firm of designers, engineers, planners and business consultants.
- Applying for Citizenship in the 21st Century citizen21.blogspot.com
Hurrah, James is blogging again!