General Commentary – Page 5 – Software and Other Shenanigans

Are you shipping usable components?

General Commentary, Programming No Responses »

Aug 312019

One of the benefits of using Javascript frameworks like React or Vue is that you can build and export your own custom components. This lets other teams in your organization or even external developers build front-ends that have a consistent look and feel across the board as well as follow any style or branding guide you have. That’s great, but think about the components you’re putting out there for developers to use. Are you putting out the bare minimum or are you shipping front-end tools that speed development up and make people’s lives easier (you know, the whole point of shipping front-end components like this)?

The universal identity crisis

General Commentary No Responses »

May 312019

I’m curious how many people identify with this scenario – to check all of your emails you have flip between at least 2 accounts, maybe even 3. And that’s just emails. There’s also calendars – again 2 of them, maybe 3 if you have a family. Most of us have multiple “identities,” each with basic services associated with them, like email, calendars, sometimes phones and/or some form of instant messaging. It’s the type of thing that’s been done by so many people in so many places that it’s ingrained in us as “normal,” but the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.

Is there a future for Java?

General Commentary, Java, Programming No Responses »

Apr 302019

I’ve been developing in Java since late 2009. It’s a good language, but I’m starting to wonder what kind of future it has. I’ve been using Java 8 since shortly after it came out, even though Java is currently on version 11. Java’s obviously still being developed, so why not move forward? A big part isn’t the infamous module system that launched in Java 9, and broke a lot of stuff. Part of it is the fact that Java is owned and controlled a by a company that seems more interested in rent-seeking off oa Java than doing anything innovative with it.

Software should have a strong opinion

General Commentary, Programming No Responses »

Mar 312019

Software is written to solve a problem. Sometimes, it’s more than one problem, but you get the idea. Being someone who both uses and writes software, I’ve found the best software out there doesn’t just solve a problem, but was written with a clear and definitive opinion about how that problem should be solved. That’s not by accident or coincidence, it’s very much causal.

Not everything fits a subscription business model

General Commentary No Responses »

Feb 282019

I’ve worked for *aaS companies for about the last 7 years. Monthly software subscriptions literally pay my mortgage, so I get the benefits of building businesses around predictable monthly payments. But that being said, not every online business lends itself to being subscription-based, and there’s a few companies out there that need to stop.

Stop componetizing everything

General Commentary No Responses »

Jan 312019

There’s a general trend in appplications these days to turn every element of their user interface into a “block,” or some other type of common component. WordPress is the latest public offender on this front, but I’ve also put up with this approach with other products in a professional setting, and it needs to freaking stop.

Some simple job-hunting tips for people who want to think they’re professionals

General Commentary, Work No Responses »

Dec 312018

Generally speaking, my posts are for people who are already working professionals. However, after a couple of spectacularly bad initial interviews (not even making it to a technical screen), I’m starting to think it may be prudent to offer some advice to the younger set hoping to become working professionals.

Some more thoughts on content moderation

General Commentary No Responses »

Nov 302018

After my recent post about moderation on social and community applications, I realized that my comments focused almost exclusively on moderating public posts (or posts to a largely public feed). But what about private 1-1 messages, private groups (whose updates may or may not appear in a feed on the main page), and other, more “private” (relative to the rest of the site) forms of posting? Would the sort of tools and guidelines I called for work there, or would something else be needed, and if so, what?

It may be time to rethink our approach to moderation

General Commentary 1 Response »

Sep 302018

Wil Wheaton recently left Twitter and gave Mastodon a try, only for it to not last very long. The “long story short” version of it was that as soon as he joined an instance and starting posting (or “tooting” as the Mastodon kids call it), people started spamming the report this post function until the instance’s admin had to remove him in an attempt to stop the flood of report spam. There’s an interesting blog post by Nolan Lawson about looking at this as an attack or harassment vector that got me thinking about some changes to community-level moderation tools that might help stem this sort of abuse.

Be careful what you wish for

General Commentary No Responses »

Aug 312018

This is a case study in why it’s important to focus on the problem rather than what you think you want. Perhaps you remember griping about how expensive your cable bill was, and how you only watched a small subset of the channels offered and wondered why couldn’t you just pay for just those channels. Well guess what? Now that Disney is launching it’s own streaming service (Disney Play), we’re approaching that future. Unfortunately, it’s a future that comes after we’ve already seen the promise of a future with aggregated digital content like YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu.

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