All my life I have hated being asked to explain what I am doing. I hate the question because I very seldom know the answer.
The Pillars of Hercules
Hooray for Hackywood - the joy of side projects
04 September, 2015Tags
I’m sure most developers have had the experience of buying a book on a new programming language, working through the first couple of…
On engineering, ingenuity and tube strikes
02 September, 2015Tags
Ahead of the recent tube strike, a colleague asked for advice on getting from Vauxhall to Euston. Never mind that there’s a bus that goes…
Clean up as you go, but don’t clean everything
02 September, 2015Tags
It’s good to take the opportunity to clean up your code as you go along, especially on big projects that will be maintained for a while…
Who hid the stairs?
26 August, 2015Tags
I’ve never understood why so many people default to taking the lift. I’ve worked with dozens of people who pay good money to go to the gym…
I love ticking boxes, but I hate box-ticking exercises - on Strava, education, and objective-setting
09 June, 2015Tags
I must confess to being mildly obsessed with my Strava statistics. I love knowing how steep the hills are that I’ve ridden up, and how many…
Technology as a means of avoiding communication
30 April, 2015Tags
I don’t want to perpetuate the stereotype of engineers as introverted geeks, but a lot of inventions lately seem to be ways to avoid talking…
The Suspicious Independence of the Independently Wealthy
28 April, 2015Tags
I’ve always been suspicious of people who can afford to be bohemian. In light of the recent spat between Chris Bryant and James Blunt about…
You are not cleverer than everyone else in the world
28 April, 2015Tags
Clients aren’t stupid. OK, well some of them are. But, much as designers and developers love to think they are cleverer than everyone else…
The project management suitcase
15 April, 2015Tags
Imagine you’re going away on holiday. You decide where to go. You book a hotel. You book flights. You decide what you’re going to take. So…
What’s going on with “What’s Going On”?
08 April, 2015Tags
I’ve never understood why people think Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On is a masterpiece. It’s reached the sacred cow status of an all-time…