The New Republic features an article by Maureen Tkacik on the MCAS issues for the Boeing 737-MAX. This one references many of the previous articles from other publications on topics like the outsourcing of software development and the use of DERs on the program. To me, this article breaks new ground in examining the management culture of Boeing, how things changed after Boeing purchased McDonnell Douglas, and how this affected the 737-MAX development process. A recurring theme from previous articles is how the pursuit of profit and “making your numbers” can result in safety impacts and, in this case, loss of life.
September 2019
A picture post of sorts
Happiness is a new pen!
I have lost two of these Parker pens already (they cost about $9), I will try to hold onto this one….
I saw these signs on a truck today:
Now that second photo – THAT is a unique selling proposition! People who need big holes should call these guys!
Exploration of the Moon is still going on!
Recently, I saw a post from Amit Gawande on a partial failure of an Indian space mission to the Moon (communication failure with the lander, orbiting part is still working). First, I was surprised that there was any national space program still active in lunar exploration. I think that the Lunar Prospector program in 1998 was the last effort from NASA to perform lunar research (oops! looking at this page, I guess there have been a few NASA missions since then…). Second, Amit mentions that it must be getting crowded on the lunar surface with all of the objects sent from Earth. While there may be a lot of debris in a small area, to me this is still just a fraction of the lunar surface. An alien visiting the Moon would still have quite a bit of undisturbed territory to explore…
Announcing the Media Feed Project
In a recent post, I commented on an idea from Dave Winer on providing a definitive list of RSS feeds for new organizations, and trying to get universities involved. I decided to take some action on my own, and created the Media Feed Project website and Github repo. The content in the OPML files at the Github repo are from my prior work on a news site called FullBlastNews.com. If anyone has RSS feed lists for news organizations, I would be interested in getting a copy. Let me know!
In response to Dave Winer’s idea for a definitive list of news feeds , I have created the Media Feed Project – check it out!
Want to help creating RSS reading lists for news orgs?
This morning, I saw a tweet from Dave Winer responding to a Emily Bell and Aron Pilhofer thread on making news story data available for public understanding. Dave made the following comment:
Emily, Aron — I’ve followed the other thread. Interesting. Here’s something useful that could help right away. A collection of RSS feeds from news orgs, maintained, with metadata. Something a group of j-school students, maybe even from different unis, could do. 😉
I added this to the thread:
I have a start at this, see http://andysylvester.com/files/reading_lists/…, these lists are used by River5 to power http://fullblastnews.com
Several years ago, I created lists for print media, news networks, video from news networks, and collections on other topics for a demonstration site called FullBlastNews.com. It was meant to show off River4 (at the time) and use of tabs to switch between different news rivers. Some of the navigation is having some problems now, but the rivers still run….
I am publishing my reading lists/rivers lists/RSS lists URL to help jump start this, I am not sure if Aron or Emily or Dave will take any action, but I will be following this conversation to see where it leads.
Is good code boring?
Juraj Malenica writes saying “You should develop boring code”. His post highlights the following:
- Make your code readable
- Keep your code predictable
- Your code is your documentation
If we take these as attributes of “boring code”, are these also attributes of “good code”? Let’s take a look.
Code readability (the ability to understand a source code function) is a good one. For most of my career, I have been working with existing code bases, and ability to understand what has been done before is very important. Working in the avionics industry, requirements and traceability go a long way towards helping understanding legacy software. If this is not available, avoiding the use of difficult-to-understand coding techniques can enhance readability.
In Juraj’s post, code predictability covers naming conventions for parameters/functions/files. For the projects I have worked on, coding standards help to define these conventions. Juraj mentioned a Python standard, there are many available.
Finally, code as documentation is a good goal. If there is no other project documentation, the source code should contain all the information necessary for another developer/engineer to pick up the code and add new features.
After this review, I would say these “boring” elements are also included in code that would be considered “good”. Is this everything needed? No (it is necessary, but not sufficent), but this is a good start.
How can we work together on the open web and on software development
I have been in several conversations in the last week (voice and email) where the concept of “working together” in software development came up, and several threads emerged:
- how the original developer doesn’t/shouldn’t have to do everything – others can contribute (to me, a key concept in open source)
- how interested/engaged users can be an important force in the direction in which a software application or tool goes forward
Dave Winer has written about this many times:
- The magic of working together
- Key concept of the open web: working together
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Working together means this: If someone else has a good-enough way to do something, rather than reinvent what they do, incorporate what they do into what you do.
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- Working together (SOTN 2018)
- Working together in 2019
I have tried to follow that second point in several ways:
- My blog uses WordPress, I did not develop my own blogging tool
- I use River5 as my RSS reader engine
- I use RiverBrowser to display my own rivers of news
- I document and evangelize how to create your own rivers of news
- I document how to use tools like River4 and 1999.io
- I help others set up these tools
I am getting ready to start working in the computer music area again after a long absence, and I am reviewing available tools to see if they fit the areas I am interested in. In that way, I am trying to practice the concepts of working together as I have outlined above.
Anyone want to work together with me? Let me know!
Is Agile “over”?
A recent Forbes article by Kurt Cagle talks about whether the end of Agile has been reached. One quote at the top of the article was a key one:
This was no longer a methodology. It had become a religion, and like most religions it really didn’t make that much sense to the outsider – or even to the participants, when it got right down to it.
If anyone using Agile concepts has gotten to the state mentioned above, I agree that “it’s over!”. We are using Scrum at my workplace, and we have done some streamlining of the overall practice to meet our needs. So far, I would say it is working well for us. However, if I ever see the “hockey stick” mentioned at the beginning of this article, or any “religious practices”, I’ll be raising my hand to say “WAIT A MINUTE!”….
The music matters
The music matters…
When a church choir works to make sure that everyone is singing the same rhythms and notes, it’s because… the music matters…
When vocalists and instrumentalists work on phrasing, dynamics, cutoffs, entrances, it’s because the music matters…
When you feel moved by a song, a symphony, live or recorded, the music matters….
When music makes you cry or evokes happy memories, the music matters…
When the silence of the end of a musical piece affects you, it’s because the music matters…
To musicians everywhere, in every performance that you give, never forget that the music matters….and to give that performance everything you have..because the music matters….
The music matters….