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How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer – IEEE Spectrum
What went wrong with the 737 Max, and reflections on safety culture and software.
(tags: engineering aircraft safety software)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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Towards an understanding of technical debt | Kellan Elliott-McCrea
Different categories of things which all get lumped together as technical debt.
(tags: programming technical-debt software)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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I’ve updated the little script I wrote to keep track of which comments are new on LJ and Dreamwidth (LJ now does this automatically in its default style, DW doesn’t, by the looks of it). Thanks to various people for telling me it was broken for HTTPS sites, which LJ and DW both default to these days.

Userscripts.org is long dead, so I’m now hosting it on my site.


Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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The Coming Software Apocalypse – The Atlantic
A couple of “make everything better” approaches: visual modelling, and mathematical verifiability.
(tags: code software complexity programming)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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Tech debt and makers vs menders
Notes on how to get good at maintenance, and the transition from scrambling to stability.
(tags: programming business software technical-debt code)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
nameandnature: Giles from Buffy (Default)

I’ve updated the little script I wrote to keep track of which comments are new on LJ and Dreamwidth (LJ now does this automatically in its default style, DW doesn’t, by the looks of it). Thanks to sally_maria for alerting me to both the problem and the solution.

Userscripts.org is long dead, so I’m now hosting it on my site.


Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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Doctor J / interview-questions · GitLab
Update to the Joel list.
(tags: hiring interview jobs career software)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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What We Can Learn from the Paris Attacks (Without Ignoring the Elephant in the Room)
Yep, this is more or less what I think.
(tags: paris terrorism islam islamism religion politics)
What is emotional labor?
A term that once described jobs where being friendly and cheerful was seen as part of the job has apparently been co-opted to mean “someone expects me to do something”.
(tags: emotion labour work relationships)
Guide to software developer job advertisements: andrewducker
Seems legit.
(tags: software software-engineering jobs adverts careers)
My first 10 day Vipassana retreat
Not *my* retreat. Some bloke’s. It’s an interesting article about the experience though.
(tags: meditation buddhism mindfulness retreat)
An alias for when you really need it done…
I’m totally setting this up.
(tags: funny computers unix sudo)
The Deadlock Empire
A nice little web game where you try to break a threaded program by executing a critical section in two threads at once. It’s pretty neat.
(tags: programming threads concurrency locks game)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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The button that isn’t | Restricted Data
There’s no actual big red button to launch all the missiles. Interesting article on nuclear command and control.
(tags: nuclear icbm button war missiles)
Secular Solstice: Doing good for goodness’ sake – The Washington Post
The WaPo reports on secular solstice celebration. Sounds cool.
(tags: atheism religion solstice)
“Yer a Developer, Harry” – Programming Is Magic
How being a programmer is a bit like being a wizard. Via andrewducker.
(tags: magic programming spells software wizards)
A Poor Imitation of Alan Turing by Christian Caryl | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books
The Imitation Game is pretty bad as history. Via HD on Facebook.
(tags: biography film review turing history war world-war-II)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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Ex-Communications – Recovering From Religion – You Are Not Alone
A new blog written by de-converts from various religions. Looks quite interesting so far.
(tags: ex-christian religion deconversion christianity)
Physics – Arrow of Time Emerges in a Gravitational System
“Standard approaches to the arrow of time typically require a rare statistical fluctuation, or, often, the smuggling in of assumptions about initial conditions. Their work offers evidence that ordinary gravitational dynamics may itself be enough to produce the simple “initial” point that can give time a direction.”
(tags: entropy time physics gravity)
Science AMA Series: We are a Group of Researchers Exploring Auditory Hallucinations – People Who Hear Voices. Ask us Anything! : science
Interesting comments on benign hallucinations.
(tags: hallucinations psychology reddit science)
cartesiandaemon – December Days: Dream Job
CartesianDaemon on what makes a good job. I think I agree with all of these. Where can I get one of those?
(tags: jobs dream employment software software-engineering)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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Read The Leprechauns of Software Engineering | Leanpub
Looks interesting, a few sample chapters on the “10 x” programmer and waterfall.
(tags: management software waterfall ebook)
William Gibson: ‘We always think of ourselves as the cream of creation’ | Books | The Observer
Gibson has a new book out.
(tags: william-gibson sci-fi science-fiction books review)
The Last Chance Ragtime Band by Harry & Edna on the Wireless | Mixcloud
Last Chance Ragtime Band on the radio, talking about playing for dancers. I knew them before they were famous.
(tags: music ragtime dancing lindyhop new-orleans)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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Implementing non-recursive make
Recursive makes are considered harmful. Here’s a recipe for a non-recursive one where you can still put project files in subdirectories.
(tags: make programming nonrecursive makefiles build software)
Embedded in Academia : Proposal for a Friendly Dialect of C
John Regehr and friends note that C compilers aggressive optimising around use of constructs the spec says are “undefined” can lead to unexpected behaviour. They propose a friendly C dialect where compilers would produce unspecified values in response to use of these constructs, but would not feel free to make demons fly out of your nose.
(tags: C programming language software-engineering)
The Left must reject the relativism at the heart of the Rotherham scandal | Left Foot Forward
This, from Al Razi of Ex-Muslim Forum, seems a sensible response, although as the worlds only impartial observer, I’d say that both the class of the victims and the race of both victims and perpetrators contributed to the horrors being ignored for so long. The Guardian will only talk about the former and the Telegraph about the latter, I suspect.
(tags: rotherham abuse religion islam news multiculturalism)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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What Long Hours Really Mean | We Are Mammoth
Via Hacker News, where there’s the usual debate about all this. Previously I’ve read research which says you can get gains out of doing it for short bursts but must then rest: longer periods of overtime end up producing less, not more. This article is more about the cultural impact, though.
(tags: work programming hours overtime business productivity)
Questions to ask your potential employer | Hacker News
Linked to the Hacker News thread rather than the original post as the commenters at HN came up with some good additional ones.
(tags: work software jobs interview interviewing)
Lies, Damned Lies, And Facebook (Part 4 of ∞) | Slate Star Codex
Scott at Slate Start Codex points out that there’s no good evidence that those “Don’t be that guy” posters have reduced the incidence of rape.
(tags: society crime advertising posters rape statistics)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.
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BBC News – Leaked letter shows ISPs and government at war
Dave wants a scheme were people uncheck a box to get pr0n described as "default on" filtering, allowing him to claim victory without the ISPs changing what they’re doing.
(tags: politics pornograpy porn censorship internet david-cameron)
David Cameron’s crusade against images of child abuse has a whiff of politics – Editorials – Voices – The Independent
What is Dave up to? The Independent identifies it as a clever bit of politics.
(tags: pornography politics porn censorship internet david-cameron)
12 Silly Things People Believe About Computers | Terminally Incoherent
(tags: computers it support funny)
Victory Lap for Ask Patents – Joel on Software
"There are a lot of people complaining about lousy software patents these days. I say, stop complaining, and start killing them. It took me about fifteen minutes to stop a crappy Microsoft patent from being approved. Got fifteen minutes? You can do it too."
(tags: prior-art software patents)

Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.

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