Opinion

This blog has been a part of my life for over fifteen years ago. When I first started, I was inspired by Patrick McKenzie’s article Don’t End The Week With Nothing. This post left a memorable impression on 20-something me who had yet to consider what work really was — trading time and (sometimes) skill for money. You work for a week, collect your paycheck on Friday, and then you and the company are even. If you are happy settling for even, that’s great. But then how can you get ahead? What would it take to finish a week with more than a break-even trade of time for money? Here I will quote Patrick verbatim: ...

The ancient Greek poet Archilochus wrote that “the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” In social psychology, these terms have been used as a shorthand for describing two cognitive styles: foxes, who are comfortable with nuance, can live with contradictions, and have different strategies for solving different problems, and hedgehogs, who focus on the big picture, reduce every problem to one organizing principle, and solve problems through that singular lens. ...

One of the recurring themes of any technology discussion is programming language. It doesn’t take much effort to find blog posts with dramatic headlines (and even more dramatic comments) about how shipping a new project with Haskell or Clojure or Elm improved someones job, marriage, and life. These success stories are posted by raving fans that have nothing but the best to say about their language of choice. A common thread running through these posts is that they are typically tied to building out new, greenfield projects. I can’t help but wonder. After the honeymoon of building a new project with a new programming language, what happens next? Is it all bubble gum and roses? ...

After graduating from university my (future) wife and I travelled and worked in Kenya as part of the Commonwealth of Learning — an intergovernmental agency dedicated to open learning and distance education. As fortune would have it, my brother had an internship in the neighbouring country of Tanzania during the same time period, and we were able to meet for a few days to enjoy the East African coast in the city of Mombasa. ...