Technology and Junk

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Okay, we’ve all heard that too many times.  And if you are a good engineer with a logical engineering mind like mine, you see right through this BS.  You think… if this guy is so good at real estate, then why is he selling DVD’s?  Who falls for this nonsense?

But strangely, when it comes to development processes so many people want to take the bait.  They buy into the promises of agile this or whatever methodology is the news of the day.  I’m not saying it’s ALL a scam or a waste of time… just the vast majority of it (say 99%).  Again, if this guy is such a great engineer or entrepreneur… why the heck is he here, speaking to us, selling an O’Reilly book on Developing X using the Y process?

No software process is going to make you build better software.  I’m not saying you can’t find good practical ideas by reading that stuff, but I think you’d be better off just thinking.  No more processes… just good engineers that are allowed and encouraged to think.  That’s my Ben Wolf 100% no fail software guarantee.  Good engineers that think will help you make better software.  It won’t cost you a nickel more.

There is an insane amount of talk going on in the internet technology world today.  By far the most acclaimed technologists are those that are acclaimed writers or video bloggers.  For the rest of us, I suppose twitter is a bit helpful to mount meager attempts at getting in the fame game.  Everybody is pushing something.  A product, a platform, or (my least favorite) a process.  Scram, scrum, agile, blech.  Whatever happened to people doing things the way that make sense in their unique situation?  Making good decisions… Thinking?  Do we need to have the world validate our processes?  Oh we should be agile?  And the best way to do that is by reading books and going to conferences?  I don’t think so A-hole.

Here’s the bottom line for me… I may or may not listen to your talk.  I may find it interesting, inspiring, or helpful.  And I may not.  But at the end of the day, I’m going to judge you on your products.  Not to sound negative, cuz for a lot of shops this is an ideal outcome.  But for a lot of other shops… it’s going to be very exposing.  You have your Gary V’s who talk A LOT and it’s a part of the product.  Then you have 37signals, who talk a lot and it’s part of their product.  But for me, 37signals better start building up the inventory to match it.  Less is less guys.  Project management software and hammers are not similar.

So I guess I’d better keep this short.  The world clearly has a serious need for more/better technology so I’m going to build it.  Can we make our products actually speak for themselves?  I’m thinking of some big time success stories (Zappos, Google)  that have done just that.

Checkout this Planning Falacy post by 37 Signals.  It’s an interesting take and for the most part something with which I very much agree.  To completely forego planning seems a bit extreme in my opinion.  I prefer to make plans and not tell anybody about them… I mean maybe the inner circle.  For example, if you publish a schedule/plan for an upcoming software release there are really only two outcomes and both are negative.

1.  You could finish late.  This one is pretty obvious, it’s what everybody is afraid of.  The big dig.

2.  You could finish early.  This is rare, because basically the team will just slow down.  It wastes time.  And if pushed to provide a date, any smart person will be as conservative as possible.  I think that project would take 2 months, but if we’re going to print t-shirts with the date on them I suppose I better say 6 months to be safe.  You pretty much just guaranteed the project would take 3 times as long.

So my plan, is to say 2 months but not really tell anybody.  Then when the thing is done in two months you can print the t-shirts and start working on whatever is next.

This has been sitting in draft mode forever… just discovered it and decided to let it rip.

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This post by “Uncle Bob” (and inspired by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky) got my colleague Jim and I talking about quality and testing in software again.  It’s a debate I feel like I’ve been having for my entire career in software development.  I’ve often found myself taking extreme stances like “testing is a waste of time” or “quality doesn’t really matter” to get a point across.  But of course, we all know that testing is important and that quality does matter.  Behind the work that most of us do, there are very real business constraints.  We don’t have infinite resources and neither do our customers.  So the key take away is that there absolutely is a point where quality no longer matters.  A point where quality improvements will not add to the value the software is creating.

I’ve done a lot of hiring over the years and have usually passed on folks that want to talk about code coverage in testing.  Not because I don’t think they are good engineers, but because I know we don’t share a common philosophy.  I’ve found that quality enhancements, like features, need limits.  I like engineers who feel strongly about testing and code coverage on the highest value and highest risk components of the application.  But for the other stuff, will do the best they can without having to double the code base with tests.  At my current shop, nextpointlab.com, we have golden rules that govern everything we design and build.  Places where mistakes matter and would really hurt us and our customers.  Not every feature is as important as the next… in most applications there are probably two or three things where quality is absolutely critical.

“The Blue Heart of the Planet”

Just passing along a great presentation. I’ve been eating strictly vegetarian at Sushi restaurants for a very long time. Not for ecological reasons, although I’ll now be adding that to my list. There are some absolutely wonderful vegetarian options at sushi restaurants.  Oshinko,  pickled gourd, sweet tofu.  I really can’t get enough of those things.

In:

TreeHugger – Yeah, their feed is annoying and their site is really slow.  But it’s a great way to quickly tap into a lot of news and up-and-comers in the world of sustainability.

Blog Maverick – Mark Cuban’s blog about finance, bball, technology, and himself.  His financial perspectives over the past few months have been really helpful.  A different perspective for sure, and he’s quite good at breaking down unnecessary complexity.  Kind of an important skill I’d say, and definitely the mark of a good technologist.

PrairieMod – If you like minimalism, organic architecture, beautiful things… you’ll get lot’s of ideas from PrairieMod.  They turned me onto some really great sites on architecture, art, and sustainability (too many for this short list).

Out:

TechCrunch – Seriously, what’s the point of that thing anymore.  A friend of mine likes to call that stuff “business porn.”  They call it “New Internet”, I’m just bored with it.

Unfortunately, 3 in 1 out is about the proportion I’ve been following for the last 5 years.  So I’ve been falling behind on lots of feeds that I find really valuable.  Anybody else care to share some must read feeds to exacerbate my problem?

People often say it takes hard word and a lot of luck to succeed as an entrepreneur. While I’m sure some entrepreneurs occasionally do win the buy-out lottery (1 in 1,000,000), every single successful entrepreneur I know did it through skill and hard work. There was lots of luck, good and bad. Economy up, economy down. But in the end it made no impact on the inevitability of their success.  Luck is always there… it’s the constant.  Everything else you do as an entrepreneur is what defines the outcome.

A close friend of mine once said of Jerry Garcia… “He just gets lucky.”  When you’re effortlessly good at what you do it always seems lucky.  But to achieve that effortlessness is the greatest skill you can attain.

A few weeks back, my wife Kim was in Chicago for a couple days in the office.  I’m usually pretty stressed out when she heads out of town these days.  I’m a good Dad, but she’s the glue.  My role is mostly to improvise around the house and keep everybody happy.  Basically, I give zerberts and hand the kids upside down.  But when Kim is out of town I need to be the full-time parent which is a much more difficult job.  I get anxious leading up to those days.  How will I get our 1 year old to bed while also watching our 3 year old?  How will I shower in the morning?  More than anything, how will I sleep?  When Kim was in Chicago recently though, it was only one week after she had been in Toronto for 2 days.  So I was still recovering.  Things have also been really busy with work so there was some general exhaustion.

Now that I’ve laid down the excuses, here’s what happened.  I was backing the minivan out of the garage, throwing in a DVD, stressing about leaving our youngest at home with the nanny, and as always thinking about work.  At which point I backed straight into our nanny’s new car.  It was super loud but didn’t seem to bother my son.  I asked him to hang tight while I went to talk with the nanny.  She was visibly shaken (as was I) but was also super cool about it.  I told her not to worry and that we’d take care of everything.  I felt and still feel like such an ass.

Anyway, at first I thought I’d pay cash but then I did some googling and was reminded that simple little dents (which is what this was) can be up to a few grand to fix.  So then I thought, why pay for insurance if you aren’t going to use it.  I called my agent at Amica insurance and they were great.  Said our premiums wouldn’t go up if the total cost of repairs came in below $1,500.  We’re fortunate not to have any incidents on our record so that is helpful.  Then they went on to coordinate everything directly with our nanny and offered to call me and allow me to pay the difference if the costs went above $1,500.  I just received a call from the claims agent to inform me that the final costs look to be around $1,400.  The best part is, we don’t even have to pay a deductible because while I skimped out on our collision deductible ($1,000) there is no deductible at all for liability.  I guess I never really even understood how auto insurance worked.

I’m thinking about calling up my agent to see if she can sell me more parent dummy insurance.  I do stupid things all the time.  These days mostly related to having a demanding career and 2 little dudes at home.  Backing into cars is one thing, but what about all the other casualties of exhaustion and mental overload?

This isn’t a news flash, but athletes (particularly basketball players it seems) are really into tattoos.  Look at a typical NBA roster and most of the guys have a bunch of tattoos.  I’m not a big fan of tattoos in general, but I’m starting to get excited about the future for those NBA players.  Here’s why:

NBA players have always been known to take fashion risks.  Think back to the ABA days when Afros and short shorts ruled the court.  Not a good look as I’m sure we all agree today, but back in the day those guys had it going on.

Thing is, it’s really easy to buy longer pants and cut an Afro.  Not so much with the tattoos.  What if Dr. J still had to rock the Fro every single day of his life?  Would he still have that big new Dr. Pepper endorsement deal?

It’s becoming increasingly evident that the next time I’m ready to buy a car I’ll have a multitude of legitimate fully electric options. The next interesting possibility is from BMW Mini with their MINI E.  Looks like a great ride.  0 emissions and an 150 mile range.  Great little city car.

MINI E