Paul M. Jones | Management2026-05-08T09:12:58-05:00What Is Good Code?2020-10-29T16:50:09-05:00(Epistemic status: I am not entirely satisfied with the Merchant here, but it's the closest I've been able to get so far.)
When managing developers, and when watching conversations between developers online, I sometimes notice them arguing past each...Teams do not accomplish anything of genuine intellectual value2019-10-17T08:53:20-05:00[T]eams are for normies, for neurotypicals, for trash people who canât retain multiple levels of variable dereferencing in their heads while coding.
Teams do not accomplish, and have never accomplished, anything of genuine intellectual value. Th...The Conquest Code of Conduct2020-10-29T08:36:50-05:00If you're tired of SJW COCs in open-source projects, try this one on for size:
Conquest's Second Law: "Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing."
tl;dr: No Socialism or Social Justice.
All contributions and commu...Quality: Program vs Product2017-09-26T07:00:02-05:00I.
Why it is that programmers and their employers have different attitudes toward the quality of a project? Thinking of myself as a programmer, I have sometimes formulated it like this:
The programmers who do the work are usually the ones who care...The Iron Law of (Open Source) Bureaucracy2016-12-12T10:09:23-06:00Something to watch out for in open-source projects: Pournelle's "Iron Law of Bureaucracy." In the organization around your project, you will find two kinds of people:
Those who concentrate on the goals of the organization. These are generally coders...The Fallacies of Enterprise Computing2016-09-02T09:45:34-05:00The Fallacies of Enterprise Computing is good throughout. It's hard to excerpt; here only some of the highlights:
After building IT systems for more than sixty years, one would think we as an industry would have learned that ânewer is not alwa...Professional Development Ladder2016-07-18T09:11:44-05:00Because of this "What is a senior developer?" conversation on Reddit, I am reminded of the Construx Professional Development Ladders, as mentioned to me long ago by Alejandro Garcia Fernandez. Here is a sample ladder for developers....An Object Lesson in Conduct Enforcement2020-10-29T08:37:56-05:00Full disclosure: I am acquainted with both Samantha Quinones and Matthew Trask. I have spoken at conferences with Samantha and attended her talks. Note that this post is about how codes of conduct and social expectations are selectively enforced, not...You Do Not Have A Right To Contribute2020-10-29T08:38:10-05:00(Another in a series on the proposed PHP code of conduct, itself a work in progress in at least one other place.)
Over the weekend I listened to a recent episode of the Dev Hell podcast, hosted by Chris @grmpyprogrammer Hartjes and Ed @funkatron Fink...On the Proposed PHP Code of Conduct2016-01-19T10:21:45-06:00Recently, Anthony Ferrara opened an RFC for PHP internals to adopt and enforce a code of conduct. Even leaving aside for the moment whether this is an appropriate use of the RFC system, the RFC generated a lot of discussion on the mailing list, in wh...