It’s already July and the summer is flying. Thankfully the weather has been nice and the sunburns minimal. Tonight is cool enough to warrant wearing a flannel. But enough about the weather, let’s talk software.
1. Kind Engineering (14 minutes)
This is a website by Evan Smith based on a previous talk. I’ve been lucky enough to have spent time on a team that prioritized these suggestions and it was a game changer. Trust is the foundation of high performing team, and trust grows with kindness. Want people to tell you when things are going wrong? Better work on your Psychological Safety.
The Manifest is a podcast all about package management. They made 16 episodes (last one was in 2021) but I still enjoyed listening to each one. Contributors to different language package managers talk about tradeoffs and design decisions they deal with. I don’t know much Java, but Maven’s story was fascinating to listen to. Or how many people praised Bundler for its great design.
3. The magic of software (10 Minutes)
Or, what makes a good engineer also makes a good engineering organization. Moxie Marlinspike (creator of Signal) shares his thoughts on qualities that make a good engineer. The most interesting being the curiosity to look beyond the black box. Reminds me of a similar article on Dependency Rejection by Andrew Montalenti. I wonder how one encourages that through an entire organization? cough cough Psychological Safety cough cough. So go ahead, pay attention to the man behind the curtain.
4. Writing Code Was Never The Bottleneck (4 Minutes)
This article resonated deeply with my thoughts on how LLM’s are changing coding. Pedro Tavares talks about what he thinks are the bigger bottlenecks in software development. Things like knowledge transfer, testing/debugging, and human coordination. How many projects have you seen fail due to the low velocity of code being written? Code generation is invaluable for initial ideation and prototyping, but it doesn’t remove the part where we sit and think about what we’re doing. Some of the best ideas come from the act of writing code and trying to validate your understanding of the problem.
5. From Python Programmer to Distributed Systems Researcher in 10 Years Without a PhD (10 Minutes)
Jesse Jiryu Davis takes us through a tour of how he ended up a Senior Staff Research Engineer in MongoDB’s Distributed Systems Research Group. It’s inspired by Phil Eaton’s From web developer to database developer in 10 years article. I enjoyed Phil’s original article so seeing someone write a similar one caught my attention immediately. This is kinda like a 2-for-1 deal if you enjoy this style of article. The interesting common thread between both was a love, and transition, into distributed systems. It was also interesting to learn that Jesse was able to get into research without PHD, something I wasn’t aware of being a possibility.
6. Ticket-Driven Development: The Fastest Way to Go Nowhere (3 Minutes)
A short but sweet one that highlights the problem with blindly focusing on tickets. You need to understand the why behind the ticket. Without understanding you are simply building for the sake of the ticket, which might lead nowhere. I recently finished reading The Mythical Man-Month and this article reminded me of this quote:
A manager’s primary function is to foster a total‑system, user‑oriented team attitude.
Programmers are meant to solve needs, not churn out code.