People working in big companies are often discussing the merits of startups. It appears, in startups everything is easier, quicker and the employees (and therefore also the companies) are getting more done. Is it the long working hours? Lack of legacy products that need supporting? Or better employee motivation in general? Having worked at a […]
I recently stumbled across the following question on Quora: What are the best examples of software bugs that became features (a.k.a. misbugs)? And here is my favourite answer: This is from an anecdote by Ken Demarest, one of the original developers who worked on Wing Commander I on the PC… … we were getting an
Marketing god Seth Godin says today: Sharing a book is (almost) as good as writing one. And when Seth speaks, I shall obey ;-). Considering I will not be able to write a book today, here is my take at the next best thing. There is a book I am reading right now that I
I have recently been tipped by one of my colleagues to this article. It is an UX-perspective about avoiding to add too many features to a maturing product. It has many noteworthy points, among them: However, we reached a point where there was just no more room for new features. Adding another feature was no
I am always enjoying watching the video above. It was first shared with me by Ron Meyer at a leadership-training I attended. It contains a couple of remarkable findings about leadership nicely explained by the narrator in the video, among them: And last but not least my own personal lesson from this video: signs of
Recently, I read an article called The 1 Work Hack That Will Save You 900 Hours a Year. And I did not get it. I found what the author describes a bit – unpractical. Do I really pull out my laptop in a meeting to actually start writing the first few words of a document
Recently, I posted a link to an article about David Maynard. One more thing that resonated with me (beside the topic about age and software engineers) was this quote: There are precious few people who have seen and comprehended enough of the rise of computing (and now mobile computing) to have some perspective on the
Found this hanging in my office today, posted on a wall by a coworker. Original appears to be from here, posted on the internet all the way back in 1999, feel free to sing along to the famous tune: Yesterday, All those backups seemed a waste of pay. Now my database has gone away. Oh
I am currently reading a book called Skunk Works by Ben Rich. It is about the inner workings of the famous Lockheed engineering site that built some of the most stunning aircraft of the 20th century, among them the SR-71 Blackbird and the first Stealth Fighter. I am not through, yet – but can already
I recently read in an article that Software Developers Are Terrified Of What Happens When They Hit 30. I did not like it too much, mostly because the main source for the article was a thread on Hacker News that discusses what happens to older developers – and shows a quite different picture. No idea