kbknight

This is the way. Unit testing has become a cargo-cult where silly tests are written that don't prove anything works, are not used to guide the architecture (the original promise of "London School testing" was that all these little unit tests would drive good architectural decisions), and don't protect against regressions on changes because they have to be re-written every time the code changes in even the most trivial way anyway.

> Plenty of people I've met had pretty finite wants.

It was hyperbole, I'm sure there is a limit, but most people are nowhere near it. Your hypothetical content person with a small apartment isn't prepared to sacrifice for more money to buy a fancier car, sure yeah.

But, don't they sound exactly like the sort of person who saw that they could hire a taxi for their burrito at a reasonable price said "Sign me up?"

> what happens when there's only demand for 8 apples and 8 pears? People don't work as much.

I think what happens when there's only demand for 8 apples and 8 pears is people stop dreaming about finally getting enough to eat and start dreaming about having a car. And when they have the car, they dream about having 2, so mom and dad can both go somewhere. And then, they dream about having karate lessons for their kids. And once their kids are in karate and soccer and dance and track (this is where I'm at right now), the kids want to add horse-riding lessons to the mix.

Edit: I think your broader point really was that an individual, especially mid and late career can really get screwed by it. And yeah, I agree. Let's help them with the extra taxes we collect from modernizing our infrastructure.

> I don’t think this is quite as guaranteed as people think.

It is, actually. People have infinite wants. Productivity increases lead to lower prices in the sector where the productivity increases happened.

Lower prices lead people to spend the difference on something else ("private taxi for my burrito" is the meme example.)

Spending the money on something else creates the other jobs.

This is why we have 150 years of unemployment and labor force participation data, and the peaks and valleys have zero correlation with internal-combustion, electrification, or IT.

Now....are those other jobs ones represented by a 100 year old union that is used to having the entire US economy in stranglehold?

No, probably not. The overall economy gets vastly wealthier.

But, if you are a 50 year old longshoreman, that's small comfort.

The dig at Nokia for specifying the jurisdiction seems unfair. Licenses are just words on a screen: they mean what the court in a jurisdiction say they mean. Sue in the right jurisdiction. Entire paragraphs can be scratched out (and whole pages added) based on how the case law in a jurisdiction says certain words have to be interpreted.

It certainly seems rare for a book that is "pro-Christianity."

But maybe that's just my own blind spot?

Haven't read Morte d'Urban. It's on the list now, thanks!

Have had a Garmin Fenix for 4 years now. I will never again buy an Apple or Google smartwatch until they can complete on battery life.

> Study finds 94% of business spreadsheets have critical errors (phys.org)

Business peeps: Oh no, we are in danger!

Software engineers: (nodding wisely) Only 94% have critical errors? Not bad!

A lot to like in here (the criticism of POs and agile certifications and treating the devs who build a system as lowly implementors is well placed), but there's nothing anti-agile about having a plan.

Healthy agile is not having no plan. Healthy agile is having a plan which the team owns and can change.

The problem is when management, instead of having some visibility into the plan, thinks they own it and have any say in it beyond answering prioritization and business-y questions.

I would add Rob Henderson's "luxury beliefs." But also...

I think the bloggers account for "Parkinson's Law" is too simplistic. If it were just about procrastinators, it wouldn't be as useful. Deadlines (even artificial ones) work because we can always make a system a little cleaner, a little more efficient, with fewer bugs, well past the point where that work has any value.

I end up re-reading "Brideshead, Revisited" about once a year. It's the rare Christian book where every single character (regardless of their relationship with Christianity) is basically screwed up.