kayo_20211030

I get where you're coming from, but "encyclopedic" has a pretty specific definition, and it doesn't twin with "ambition" in any sensible way. It seems like it should, but it doesn't. I'm commenting on the poor writing. Maybe "grand ambitions", or "colossal ambitions"? "encyclopedic ambitions" just doesn't work, unless we're going with vibe-writing :-)

> encyclopedic ambitions

Does that phrase even make sense?

I stopped reading at that point.

I'm not following. What does CNCF have to do with it?

Unless you have Netflix scale, or Netflix scale problems, why bother with micro-services?

Most mid-scale problems don't demand a micro-services solution, with data ownership, delineation of service responsibilities, etc. Monoliths with single-truth databases work just fine.

Micro-services are an organizational convenience, and not a technology response to complexity. It's easier to manage groups of people than it is to manage complex technology. That's fine if you need it. Normally, it's not.

If it works for you, sure, go ahead. If it doesn't, don't chase a topical orthodoxy.

First two pars are 100% correct. Third par, I'm not so sure about. The jury is still out, I feel.

I always enjoy rereading this every few years.

Similar, and even older, is the Doctrine of Completed Staff Work. It runs along the same lines, and it's advice that I've valued for many years.

https://govleaders.org//completed-staff-work.php

Is it possible they're the medieval equivalents of dry-wells? Why build something big-enough for people if all you want to do is accommodate run-off or sewage? What's the geology like; porous vs. no-porous? Porous enough for storm drainage, maybe? It seems a stretch to call them secret. Why document something as common as a drain?

True. Taiwan is an important ally, unofficially. The folks the US is feuding with right now are also allies, but officially. As are Japan and South Korea. It can't be encouraging.

I didn't grow up in the US, but the fact that 28% of US houses in 1956 had "two or more bathrooms" is mind-blowing. I reckon my country would've run around 5%-10%, with the upper-bound being a WAG. It made for some good ole family drag-out-knock-downs, though. We still laugh about those.

Not original poster, but in my experience Excel on the Mac is a God-awful piece of software. It's like Excel-lite, and that just doesn't work for what I need. ymmv of course, depending on what you need.

Maybe. It could be true. But, in the interest of folks who just want a summary with an opportunity to dig in deeper, this piece would have benefited from the addition of a worked example in the text; simply as an explanation and a teaser. I spend enough time with spreadsheets.

... and then becomes an email client (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski%27s_La...). A two-fer. lol.

Yes. The best QA people are gold. Infuriating at times, but gold.

> end up having the most knowledge about the application works in practice

The best I've worked with had this quality, and were fearless advocates for the end-user. They kept everyone honest.

A nice piece that outlines all the challenges, the opportunities, and the cultural and social adjustments that need to be made within organizations to maximize the chance of left-shifted testing being successful.

IMPO, as a developer, I see QA's role as being "auditors" with a mandate to set the guidelines, understand the process, and assess the outcomes. I'm wary of the foxes being completely responsible for guarding the hen-house unless the processes are structured and audited in a fundamentally different way. That takes fundamental organizational change.

The saddest part of this piece was

> Austin Gordon, died by suicide between October 29 and November 2

That's 5 days. 5 days. That's the sad piece.

The section headed "A World Without People" is the most interesting. We all need someone to tell us we're wrong-headed every now and again. Simply because we often are, and that's perfectly fine.

It might be a fair-enough interpretation. For major issues, what's ambiguously said (or unsaid) by Congress can be specifically said (or unsaid) by the Courts.

Point #2 is related, as it also connected to a requirement to interpret "intent", which is a tricky thing even at the best of times.

As for point #3, I can't comment. I don't quite understand Roberts' logic about official vs. discretionary, but I feel it has something to do with original framers' intent also.

A really good piece.

It's funny how fortuitous timing often dictates outcomes.

The piece says about CP/M:

> The early business microcomputer industry ran on it and essentially nothing else

The users in the "hobbyist" market, which was very distinct from the "commercial" market at that time, probably couldn't afford CP/M anyway. There was between the two markets, at that time, some, but not a great deal of convergence. With the introduction of the cheaper 8088, the commercial and the hobbyist market was starting to converge. Whatever OS ran on that chip and its successors, and whatever was priced reasonably, would win. (that's hindsight, but still true in retrospect)

I believe that even if CP/M-86 were delivered on time, and its price-point wasn't set correctly, there wouldn't have been the same convergence. However, DOS was priced correctly and there was no exclusivity to IBM, and boom!, we were off to the races where hobbyists devs could migrate to commercial development with all their knowledge and experience being relevant; make the money, and do great things.

The episode created a pipeline which still exists today.

Code is a way to communicate your intentions to the machine; but, as importantly, it's a way to communicate your intention to the next developer. Any advice to avoid being too clever is good advice.

Yeah. I think the communitarian point is valid, and valuable. Also, even if you only do that 1 machine thing in the basement, you can regard it as an achievement that's worth something. At least I did that thing. It makes me feel kinda ok too, or just better.

Maybe. I'd propose that Louis XVI is more or less historically irrelevant. He just happened to be the king on the throne when the real historical figures came for him - Robespierre, St. Just, Danton etc., and they then were followed by Napoleon, who, no matter how you look at it, must be high on the HPI scale. Louis XIV, and even Louis XIII, seem to me more fundamentally "historical" than poor old sixteen.

... no motion picture box office receipts either.

Totally, two things that go together, onions and movies. lol.

This is wild. 5.3% isn't a small amount, at least not for US consumers.

All economies have deep and sometimes non-obvious dependencies. I'm interested in what happens next.

Will food stores lay off workers? Will they change their mix of offerings? Where is the new equilibrium going to be?

As an example from the piece:

> Only a handful of categories showed increases. Yogurt rose the most, followed by fresh fruit, nutrition bars and meat snacks.

Will the unit prices of these products go up to compensate for the losses in savory snacks?

... and that "bad" food in the US is frequently cheaper and easier to find than "good" food.

I can't but feel that there's a second, complementary point here.

Will you learn something about the place you visit? Probably. But, sure, not always. It's possible that reading the web might be as effective.

However, there's also the other side. To travel is to become educated about you. This experience cannot be replicated by reading the web. There's nothing quite as instructive as being blown away by the foreignness of another place, the language, the customs - the sheer strangeness of it to you. How you react to it, or manage it, or negotiate it are lessons worth learning. That's the education.

I won't comment on the merits. Each person can do what they want. But, the line that caught my attention was:

> The first question often asked of Windows refugees migrating to Linux is, "Why Linux?"

The answer, realistically, is probably "What else?". Unless you're comfortable with the BSD's (which I like, and weren't mentioned), or unless you have recent Mac hardware lying around, it's the easiest and most practical alternative.

It's a bit of a duopoly, isn't it?; with a third leg that's sometimes something in the BSD camp, and sometimes in the MacOS camp.

Thanks. Nice links. I love the handwritten assembler pic with mapping from mnemonics to op codes. If you had to punch it in on a hex keypad, you absolutely needed that. Unfortunately, I never was organized enough to have different color pens :-)

Peter Seibel's original post is worth reading in its entirety.

It's a decently balanced piece. It leaves room for various views, and its summation seems about right.

https://gigamonkeys.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/coders-unit-tes...

I remember jones-ing for that computer. It was too expensive though. Then I got a series of books about how to build an Elektor Junior, which was a cheaper alternative. I did that, I loved it; and then in short order the BBC Micro stole my heart. The through-line was the 6502, which retains a place in my heart even today. It's fascinating to me that there still remains interest in that CPU even today, with papers and publications and repos. That CPU has had a great innings. Both simple enough and complex enough. It went on to power the Apple, the Pet, various Acorns. It's interesting to look at the family tree, even the ARM chips have a family association (say, cousins through the Acorn line).

I reread the piece. It's better than I thought originally.