I listen to Accidental Tech Podcast[1], and in episode 54, there was a hearty discussion on whether enabling warnings as errors in production – or in some cases, development – was a good idea. The context was around whether that kind of strict error checking could have prevented the #gotofail SSL bug that affected iOS […]
I have a problem. I get bored/tired of how this blog looks. Given the time I spend every week writing and editing and posting, I overthink how impactful it makes its first (visual) impression. Compounded by the speed of design, my familiarity of front-end web development, and my own lack of design prowess, and the […]
My alma mater, UC Berkeley, put out a progressive news release last week: for the first time ever, there are more women enrolled in the Intro to Computer Science class than men. It’s an amazing accomplishment in light of the male-dominated software engineering industry; much digital ink has been spilt about how uncomfortable women feel […]
As Paul Graham has infamously noted, for programmers of my generation, there is a significant cohort of guys – and this set is unilaterally male – who were poking around on computers when we were young and impressionable. These were not quite the hulking mainframe behemothen[1] of the generation prior, but the WinTel PCs that […]
My dad just forwarded me the latest family photo email. It’s something that parents like to do. And as I watch the email crash my phone from sheer payload size, I began to wonder: why not just connect via Facebook? Or link to a private Dropbox, Flickr, or some other account with a stream of […]
I used to be a astrophysics nerd wannabe. The “wannabe” part is an apt qualifier: I was into the more popular culture and easily digestible aspects of astrophysics, but never quite pursued the college education that would vindicate that interest with the math and hard science techniques. I read popular science books like A Brief […]
As I continue figuring out the work to manage engineers, I’ve asked other, more experienced and better managers to give me whatever advice and commentary they have on a job that’s both less discussed and less defined. Here is what they said: Learn how to manage projects. It’s not a formal part of the job […]
Amazon is a scary company. At least, that’s the story told by The Everything Store, a recounting of the Amazon founding and growth story leading up to its present-day conglomeration of e-commerce, mobile devices, and cloud platforms. The book tries to be fair and report both the good and the bad, and it’s a bit […]
Gaming on phones and tablets have certainly come a long way from that poker game that Apple released with the first App Store. There is, if not a particularly healthy ecosystem of games, at least a flood of them of all types and stripes: ports from handheld gaming devices; ports from old consoles; Flash-based games; […]
There aren’t that many books on video games; I’ve probably read most of them. For a medium and industry that pulls in almost $100 billion, it’s still seen as little more than a casual diversion, with the stereotypical acne-ridden, foul-mouthed teenager as the target audience. It makes Killing is Harmless – a book which tries […]
I’m officially giving engineering management a shot. Common cynicism would cite the Peter Principle as relevant when an engineer decides to shift their role into the less technical. And it’s true: I code a lot less, I’m much less able to work on projects and features that require hardened commitments, and I sit in meetings […]
Recently my friend and colleague Jack Danger tweeted this question: We engineers say we want to work on “hard problems.” Know what’s the hardest problem, though? Building a product that’s worth a damn. — Jack Danger (@jackdanger) January 18, 2014 To which I responded: @jackdanger Take it a step back further: the hardest problems aren’t […]