Cry me a river

This morning, Dave Winer published a long post about the new Blurt theme available on WordPress.com. He comments on how this theme competes with his WordLand application, which provides a streamlined editor interface for WordPress blogs, saying “…most of the things it advertised for were very much part of the pitch for wordland.” I am sorry to have to bring this up, but there are a lot of features within WordLand that are not a part of this theme, so this is a poor comparison. There are also many other issues with this post, so let’s get started with a review.

I created a test site to see what the editing interface was like. My first impulse was to click on the “plus” sign at the top, since that is an accepted WordPress shortcut to add a new post. This action brought up the familiar WordPress Gutenberg editor user interface. I typed a short phrase and posted it. The look and feel of posts published on the theme is very similar to Twitter. It also offers a comment text box for reader to add comments.

Next, I decided to explore the menu on the left side of the site. The Compose link brought up a familiar posting interface (i.e., “just like Twitter”). I entered a test post there. I then created another test post to see if I could do any linking or styling of the text, but I could not. This is a key feature of WordLand, so points to Wordland here. So – better editing experience with WordLand, ability to post like on Twitter with Blurt. It’s difficult for me to see how Blurt competes with WordLand.

On the Blurt topic, Andrew Shell says this was a theme put together by two WordPress developers in a week as part of an internal WordPress project called “Radical Speed Month”. From Dave’s response, I assume he does not know the developers and/or has not worked with them, since he did not know this new theme was coming. So what? Who cares? Go do something better, or different!

The majority of Dave’s post complains about how Automattic should have worked with him on this Blurt thing, and on his WordLand project, and how they should act as a “banker and distributor“, and not compete with developers on product development. My response – why should Automattic be working with him and providing him development support, or anyone else for that matter? They are an independent company with their own goals and directions. From historical items in his post, Dave recounts a number of examples where he developed a product and the “platform vendor” built something on his ideas, or did not work with him. Again – so what? Who cares? I think Dave should take a look at this Jason Alexander video talking about actors waiting for someone to hire them, and replace the word “actor” with “software developer”. Go build out the vision for WordLand that you wrote about in September 2025. We’ve been waiting for eight months, where is it?

A first look at the GutenbergLand editor for WordPress

On April 12, 2026, Dave Winer announced a demonstration version of a second editor (GutenbergLand) integrated with the wpIdentity package that powers Dave’s WordLand editor for WordPress.

The editor allows you to add blocks like when using the native Gutenberg editor in WordPress.

Here is a screenshot of WordLand for comparison:

I was able to select my WordLand test blog as the location for my GutenbergLand post, and was able to post some text, then another post where I added a title. In WordLand, a title can be added to a post in the editor user interface, but in GutenbergLand, the title has to be added via a menu command.

From a basic editing standpoint, I would say either editor can be used for creating WordPress posts on WordPress.com sites. Some setup is still required to be able to post to WordPress self-hosted sites (Jetpack plugin is required, see this Github issue).

Starting my exploration of AI

Now that I am retired, I am taking some time to explore AI tools, specifically Claude from Anthropic. In my previous job, I used Google Gemini for answering questions on tool setup/options, or creating short one-off scripts for repetitive tasks. However, these were all performed using ad-hoc prompts, and I wanted to learn how to use CLIs to create things.

I signed up for a Claude Pro subscription, and started a free course called Claude Code for Everyone (created by Carl Vellotti). The first module was an overview of how Claude can analyze files, extract and summarize data, and several other features. The second module was a first step at “vibe coding” – creating an online quiz. Claude created the code, added a repo to my Github account, then deployed it to Vercel (see the quiz here). In many ways, this is a contrived example, but a good way to get my feet wet with this kind of tool. Now I need to think of some apps to create!

Organizing my retirement with org-mode

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am now retired. As I approached my first week of retirement, I had been making a list of things I wanted to do. As my list grew to 25 items, I felt a little uneasy. I needed some more structure…and that is when I turned to org-mode in Emacs.

I created an outline with the first level heading of “Retirement” so I could find it easily within my main org file. I then added two second level headings (Tasks and Weekly Planner). The Tasks heading is the “inbox” for when I think of something new that I want/need to get done. Under the Weekly Planner heading, I added sub-headings for each day of the week. Within each day, I had a standard set of tasks (exercise, dog-walking, practicing musical instruments). I then chose a few items from the Tasks list and copied them to the days in the Weekly Planner. As I complete the tasks (TODO items in Org Mode), I change them to DONE, and moving items up and down in the list depending on my priorities. Finally, I have a “Log” heading where I record significant things for each day (PS – I already that this in my org file).

Here is a screenshot with example tasks:

On Monday, I started using this system. Today (Thursday), I would say it is working well for me. Yay! I have created a sample file if anyone want to try this. Enjoy!

Announcing my retirement

As of April 10, 1026, I am officially retired! I have worked over 40 years in the aerospace industry in the US, it has been a good career. In my retirement, I plan to focus on my health (via diet and exercise) and spending more time with family. I also plan to work on some personal software development projects, since I will have more time. If anyone has something in mind where I can help or collaborate, let me know!

“Collaboration” is not always bullshit

I recently read a post by Joan Westenberg (via Dave Winer) regarding the productivity of software developers (titled “”Collaboration” is bullshit.”). Westenberg refers to several instances of a small percentage of individuals creating the majority of value. This historically has been called “Pareto’s rule” or “the Pareto principle”, although Westenberg does not refer to this concept.

The post then moves to a rant on the “collaboration industry” (use of Agile tools/concepts) and how teams have moved from taking responsibility for their work to looking at communication and collaboration as the main output. From the examples given, I wonder if Westenberg has ended up being on a lot of teams like this and observed this pattern repeatedly. A representative pull-quote:

“Communication matters, and shared context matters. But there’s a huge difference between communication and collaboration as infrastructure to support individual, high-agency ownership, and communication and collaboration as the primary activity of an organisation. Which, if we’re honest, is what most collaboration-first cultures have actually built. They’ve constructed extraordinarily sophisticated machinery for the social management of work, without actually doing the work they’re socialising about.  “

I can agree with some of this sentiment. The work is what matters, not the work in the tool. When I was first exposed to Agile practices 10 years ago, it took a while to understand how the tools and concepts worked together to produce results. I found that if the work is organized so the work needed to meet a milestone was clear, Agile tools (like Jira) can make it easier to see if that work is getting done. However, that was only one leg of the stool. The other legs were (2) a schedule, tasks, and milestones that are being tracked, and (3) a person in charge who has agency to manage the effort.

I have worked in the aerospace industry for 40 years, and I can testify that when those three legs are present, teams can be successful, and I have been the person in charge on those types of teams. The problems start when one or more of these legs is missing. When I have joined a new team, the first thing that I ask for is the schedule. This tells me what the plan is for the project. To me, a plan is a schedule, clearly defined tasks, and milestones. If I hear the words “we don’t have a schedule”, that is an immediate signal that the project is in trouble or will be soon. Without a schedule, tasks and milestones, how does the team know what they are doing, or what is the “definition of done”, or when are they supposed to get things done? That is as deadly as the “collaboration culture” that Westenberg describes. It is hard to know if you are “on schedule” if there is no schedule. For the record, most of the teams I have worked on or with did not have this “collaboration culture” problem. We had a schedule, and we knew what needed to get done, and what “done” meant.

On tracking whether the work is getting done, this can be done in many ways. Teams don’t have to use Agile practices to get work done, and they don’t have to use tools like Jira to track work. However, to be a successful team, there has to be A WAY to track the work. Finally, there has to be a single person in charge who monitors the work, makes decisions that affect the team, protects the work of the team, and is the “honest broker” if the team performance is not meeting expectations, or if schedule or cost targets are aggressive or unrealistic (i.e., the person who has overall responsibility). Sometimes the story that the data tells is “we are going to be three weeks late”. With that data, you can have a conversation about how to mitigate issues (reduce scope, add resources, whatever). Without that data, it is much more difficult to have a productive conversation. In my career, I have observed a number of team leaders who had problems in having these types of conversations.

The last area I want to address is the makeup of teams. Yes, team leaders (and their leaders) would always like to have the “best” people on a team (read that “most productive/top performers”). That is usually not the case. In most situations, the team leader has to work with the people assigned. This may require coaching, mentoring, adjusting work assignments to match with skills, or other actions. As mentioned above, if the work is being tracked, the team leader can make adjustments to keep making progress. If problems are still occurring after making adjustments, that data can support a conversation regarding resources/assignments.

To sum up, Westenberg makes some good observations about productivity within groups. I understand the digs on “collaboration”, but I would say that the teams and cultures described in the post have problems beyond “collaboration”, which my “three legs” mention above would address. Perhaps Westenberg should find some better teams to work with….

One more thing – use of Agile tools and concepts are meant to help teams be more productive. If that is not the case, the environment where the tools are being used should be examined. Perhaps there is a lack of will to have a “crucial conversation” about the story that the data is telling….

PS – I found this piece through a link from Dave Winer. I disagree with Dave Winer’s statement as he links to the Westenberg piece . People use different products to do different things. In most situations, standards have nothing to do with the selection of the products. Dave is focused on writing tools and communicating using social networks, and yes, if every social network service used the same standards/formats, there could be easy interoperability between writing tools for those social networks. However, as I have written before, there is not much incentive for companies/developers to cooperate, and users are not demanding that services have interoperability. I think Dave Winer should look to other examples rather that the Westenberg post to support his assertion.