Links: 8-21-2019

  • We Don’t Do That Here
    Quote: "It is a conversation ender. If you are the newcomer and someone who has been around a long time says “we don’t do that here”, it is hard to argue. This sentence doesn’t push my morality on anyone. If they want to do whatever it is elsewhere, I’m not telling them not to. I’m just cluing them into the local culture and values. If I deliver this sentence well it carries no more emotional weight than saying, “in Japan, people drive on the left.” “We don’t do that here” should be a statement of fact and nothing more. It clearly and concisely sets a boundary, and also makes it easy to disengage with any possible rebuttals."
    (categories: community culture diversity inclusion tech )

Links: 8-5-2019

Links: 7-27-2019

Links: 7-11-2019

  • 4 principles for massive software engineering projects
    Quote: ".. We did a bunch of things right to make this giant program work. Chief among them are the four engineering principles we used to plan and execute the project: All-in – This was a massive program and it needed the entire company, from exec to intern, behind it. Attack the riskiest assumption – Don’t think “MVP.” Think about what the riskiest part of the entire program is, and focus on that until it’s no longer the top risk. Incremental, even when it hurts – Reduce risk by breaking the migration into as many small parts as possible, even when that increases dev time. Sprint to 100% – In this program, the payoff was when we could completely stop deploying to the old infrastructure. Don’t slow down or lose focus until you are done, done, done, and done. These, along with our company values (especially “don’t f**k the customer” and “build with heart and balance”), formed the foundation for the entire project."
    (categories: atlassian monolith engineering refactor software prioritization )

  • What is Hedonic Adaptation and How Can it Turn You Into a Sucka?
    Quote: "In no particular order, the biggest factors influencing human happiness include meaningful work (with lots of autonomy, low stress, and low fear of losing your job), private life, community, health, freedom, and a philosophy of life."
    (categories: life culture money philosophy values happiness work )

  • Four Magic Numbers for Measuring Software Delivery – ONZO Technology – Medium
    Quote: "…there are 24 capabilities that are correlated with high performing software delivery organisations. Broadly speaking these fall into a few categories; Continuous Delivery — How well do you build small batches, test them and push them to production frequently? Like… Really frequently Architecture — Does your systems architecture empower teams to work independently and deliver features end-to-end? Product & Process — Are you building the right thing? And learning how to do it better Lean Management & Monitoring — Is your approval process for moving a binary to production lightweight and effective? Once it gets to production how well does your platform share its operational health? Cultural — Does your environment support people in learning, growing and collaborating? Does the leadership inspire, support and provide vision for the team?"
    (categories: metrics engineering software management architecture process monitoring )

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