Blog Posts

To do: Create an archive copy of every link in case the originals disappear.

Ted Unangst - out with the old, in with the less

 * http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-less

D. J. Bernstein - Some thoughts on security after ten years of qmail 1.0
Architect systems so that most functions are untrusted. Minimize volume of code providing those functions. Minimize bug rate in that code My prediction: We will have invulnerable software systems, with no bugs in trusted code. We will be confident that these systems enforce the user’s security requirements


 * https://cr.yp.to/talks/2007.11.02/slides.pdf

Ryan Dahl - I hate almost all software.
There will come a point where the accumulated complexity of our existing systems is greater than the complexity of creating a new one. When that happens all of this shit will be trashed. We can flush boost and glib and autoconf down the toilet and never think of them again.


 * http://tinyclouds.org/rant.html
 * http://archive.is/hWeGB

Danny Tuppeny - Have Software Developers Given Up?
Over the last few years it feels like the quality of software and services across the industry is falling rather than climbing. Everything is always beta (both in name and quality). Things are shipped when marketing wants them to rather than when they’re ready because “we can easily patch them”. End users have basically become testers, but it’s ok, because this is Agile.


 * http://blog.dantup.com/2016/04/have-software-developers-given-up/
 * http://archive.is/kcnlr

Programming Sucks - Still Drinking
the truth is everything is breaking all the time, everywhere, for everyone. Right now someone who works for Facebook is getting tens of thousands of error messages and frantically trying to find the problem before the whole charade collapses.


 * http://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks
 * http://archive.is/XfxE3
 * Dramatic Reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MticYPfFRp8

Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a Super-Productive Programmer

 * http://blog.smartbear.com/careers/fabrice-bellard-portrait-of-a-super-productive-programmer/

Justin Jackson - I'm a fucking webmaster
it was simple, but it was focused. No distractions, just: what idea are you trying to express?


 * https://justinjackson.ca/webmaster/
 * http://archive.is/ac1LA

Adam Landley - Cleaning up the toybox code
Advice on crunching your C code down til it's tiny.


 * http://landley.net/toybox/cleanup.html

Dadgum - Death of a Language Dilettante

 * http://prog21.dadgum.com/219.html
 * http://archive.is/86u8h

Eric Elliot - The Shocking Secret About Static Types
Contains a bug density by language chart.


 * https://medium.com/javascript-scene/the-shocking-secret-about-static-types-514d39bf30a3#.j22lakbpc
 * http://archive.is/IeURl

Richard Gabriel - Habitability and Piecemeal Growth (excerpt)
Habitability makes a place livable, like home. And this is what we want in software—that developers feel at home, can place their hands on any item without having to think deeply about where it is.
 * http://akkartik.name/post/habitability

Kent Mitchell - Ada Mailing list "the ultimate in garbage collection"
From: k...@rational.com (Kent Mitchell) Subject: Re: Does memory leak? Date: 1995/03/31 Message-ID: <3lhdjd$l6h@rational.rational.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 100649473 distribution: world references: <3kopao$ekg@nef.ens.fr>  <3kvccb$18ru@watnews1.watson.ibm.com> organization: Rational Software Corporation newsgroups: comp.lang.ada

Norman H. Cohen (nco...@watson.ibm.com) wrote:
 * The only programs I know of with deliberate memory leaks are those whose
 * executions are short enough, and whose target machines have enough
 * virtual memory space, that running out of memory is not a concern.
 * (This class of programs includes many student programming exercises and
 * some simple applets and utilities; it includes few if any embedded or
 * safety-critical programs.)

This sparked and interesting memory for me. I was once working with a customer who was producing on-board software for a missile. In my analysis of the code, I pointed out that they had a number of problems with storage leaks. Imagine my surprise when the customers chief software engineer said "Of course it leaks". He went on to point out that they had calculated the amount of memory the application would leak in the total possible flight time for the missile and then doubled that number. They added this much additional memory to the hardware to "support" the leaks. Since the missile will explode when it hits it's target or at the end of it's flight, the ultimate in garbage collection is performed without programmer intervention.

-- Kent Mitchell                  | One possible reason that things aren't Technical Consultant            | going according to plan is ..... Rational Software Corporation  | that there never *was* a plan!

https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=comp.lang.ada/E9bNCvDQ12k/1tezW24ZxdAJ

Imaginary Problems - George
... I am absolutely convinced that the neophilia and constant complication of otherwise straightforward projects is a neurotic response similar to parrots plucking feathers and mutilating themselves when given not enough to do.

comment from the article


 * https://blog.cerebralab.com/#!/blog/16
 * http://archive.is/OYoRC
 * https://lobste.rs/s/l8x4ru

Interim OS: Reclaiming the Computer through Minimalism and Genericity - Lukas F. Hartmann

 * http://dump.mntmn.com/interim-paper/

Write code that is easy to delete, not easy to extend. - tef

 * https://programmingisterrible.com/post/139222674273/write-code-that-is-easy-to-delete-not-easy-to

People that tweet about things being broken
Why do I continue to toot about all computers failing regularly? Because most of us disbelieve it. It'll never work if we believe it works.


 * https://twitter.com/garybernhardt

technically everything is user error.

expecting this shit stack to work?

user error.


 * https://twitter.com/sadserver

DELETE ALL SOFTWARE IT WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE


 * https://twitter.com/PHP_CEO/status/663724239837642753

bat: a version of cat that takes 2 hours to install.


 * https://twitter.com/brunoborges/status/1036003951362154497