thirstybear

thirstybear, 1 year ago to random

Lightbulb moment 💡

A Technical Coach does things with a delivery team.

A traditional non-technical agile coach does things to the team. Especially in a company wide “transformation”.

Tinkering with ceremonies, process flow and metrics hoping that the team will magically gain the skills they need just doesn’t work IME. Quite the opposite-in many cases I have seen it harden the team against change.

thirstybear, 11 months ago to random

Ok Masto-hivemind - I am in the market for a desk mat. Like a mouse mat, but bigger. Preferably with an image on it (amusing, sci-fi, cats 🤷‍♂️). What do folks recommend? What’s out there? Everything I am finding seems so dull.

thirstybear, 4 months ago to random

Typescript numpty question…. I have some code (not mine) ingesting a JSON config file using require(). If the JSON is corrupt/wrong - stray comma, no closing ] etc - it barfs (no surprise there). But when it barfs, it spews what looks like a whole index.cjs file to the output rather than simply throwing an exception.

What gives?

RTFM replies permitted as long as they include what part of TM to FR 😉 I need a clue here!

Cc @stevefenton

thirstybear, 8 months ago to random

And people wonder why I say AI isn't going to take our jobs just yet…and probably not for several generations.

thirstybear, 7 months ago to random

My VPN is up for renewal. So what are folks using? I currently use Tunnelbear - easy to use, convenient, and excruciating bear puns. But they’ve now been bought by McAfee.

So, what’s out there? Looking for secure networking on the road (hotel & other public wifi), and preferably true privacy (no logs/no tracking). On my radar are Proton and Mullvad. Or roll my own.

Thoughts?

thirstybear, 10 months ago to random

<sigh>
It would appear I am trapped in some kind of limbo parallel universe

Apparently I am not experienced enough to deliver code (too much technical coaching of folks lately) and simultaneously too experienced to develop code (too much delivering customer value recently) 🤷‍♂️

All despite an extensive portfolio showing I can both improve team capabilities AND deliver value to customers

WTAF? Anyone else found themselves trapped like this? What’s going on? How do you break out of it?

Come On Reaction GIF by MOODMAN

thirstybear, 11 months ago to random

I have a vague recollection that the US Army(?) published something about autonomous units working towards an objective, basically “inventing" agile in their context.

What is the reference I am trying to dredge up from my memory here? TIA.

thirstybear, 3 months ago to random

WhereTF did this “conventional commit format" and commitlint BS come from? It looks and smells like a solution desperately looking for a problem.

An effective (git) commit is simply

• a subject line. No more than 50 chars (to keep git log happy). Written in the imperative (eg ‘Remove unused method)
• a body, wrapped at 70-ish characters (I use 72) explaining what & why
• a blank line between the two

Seemples.

H/T Chris Beams who pulled together this collective wisdom
https://cbea.ms/git-commit/

thirstybear, 10 months ago to random

“generative AI is now writing, debugging and delivering almost 50% of the code in some organisations, reducing the need for junior developers”

1. Really? Name one we can take seriously.
2. I see a surge in project rescue gigs, and training courses in refactoring machine-generated lousy code on the horizon
3. Written by a director at Hays “specialising in Technology and Intelligent Automation”. Righto 🤨

Realisation and a backlash starts in about a year or so, I suspect.

https://www.contractoruk.com/news/0016020how_ai_changing_it_contractor_jobs_market_2023.html

thirstybear, 9 months ago to random

The MacBook music app pauses music whenever a message comes in on the iPhone 🫤.

WTAF? This can't be correct behaviour, surely? (I know: “Don't call me Shirley”….and no, the phone isn't in Airplane mode 😉).

Anyone out there with a fix? It's annoying AF.

thirstybear, 8 months ago to random

Anyone out there also hearing impaired? What office phone headset do you use?

AFAICS none of the office headsets are over ear, which for me is far more effective and comfortable because of the behind-the-ear gubbins of the hearing aid. All the on-the-ear models are uncomfortable and ineffective.

"Use bluetooth headphones!" I hear you cry 🙂. Useless in a locked-down office system with no BT connectivity…..can't even plug in a BT dongle….

Suggestions gratefully received.

thirstybear, 1 month ago to random

Anyone using the Apple MacBook Air M3 with Jetbrains tools? Good enough, or underpowered for that sort of thing?

thirstybear, 14 days ago to random

Anyone here on SpiderOak One? Is yours still down? (Mine isn't backing up)
They seem to be having trouble with the migration to their new datacentre.

thirstybear, 4 months ago to random

Are there any decent scripts/apps to analyse code churn out there? Or do I need to analyse the git logs myself?

thirstybear, 3 months ago to random

Hey @christianhujer - I’ve found another language for your collection 😁

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS

thirstybear, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

I’m looking at getting fibre to the home connected - it has finally arrived in the village where I live! - and one of the providers says they can “manage my wifi for me”.

Really? 🤨 So they can get into my router from outside my network, into my mesh nodes and monitor performance/change config remotely?

They say it’s “a service”. I say the Gigaspire Blast routers they are offering have been backdoored 🚩

Thoughts?

thirstybear, 10 months ago to random

Don’t you just hate it when something you learned years ago is there in your memory but just…out…of…reach….?

What’s the name of the distributed data paradox? The one where distributed data across stores can be accurate, or fast, or reliable (I think that’s the three, and you have to choose 2?)

thirstybear, 11 months ago to random

Damn. Low energy day.

If anyone comes across my motivation, please send it home. Thanks.

thirstybear, 11 months ago to random

#AOTB23 Thursday morning Keynote talk by Jeff Gothelf. Brilliant talk around roadmaps, and the power of outcomes over Big Up Front plans.

But I cannot believe we are still talking about this. Be flexible, work on outcomes not outputs, iterate based on feedback, and do not rigidly fix the roadmap. 🤷‍♂️ There is something else in the way, stopping this change in most companies. We know what we need to do, but people don’t.

#failureship

thirstybear, 5 months ago to random

Not as bad as some articles I’ve read, but another case of “tell me you don’t understand software development without telling me you don’t understand software development”. Suspect this self-proclaimed “engineer-cum-columnist” hasn’t written serious software in an awfully long time, if ever.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/13/truth-about-ai-might-produce-better-software

thirstybear, 4 months ago to random

Gah! Today I have tried 10-20 “Typescript with Mocha” online basic tutorials and found none of them work (annoyingly most of them end with ‘if things are set up right then this will just work’ - obviously that means ‘if you do the steps we have left out’).

So does anyone have a basic, minimal, working, assume-nothing newbie tutorial to get Typescript working with Mocha with a simple ‘1 + 1 = 2’ type test?

thirstybear, 4 months ago to random

Spotted a new abomination today. A “hybrid and in-person event”. WTF is one of those supposed to be?

Rough definitions I use that mostly fit:

In-person - pretty obviously an in-the-flesh meeting

Distributed - everyone remote, even if they are neighbours

Hybrid - some kind of 3rd Circle of Hell where some people are in an in-person meeting, while others watch remotely

thirstybear, 11 months ago to random

Any Mastodonites (is that even a word? 🐘) heading to Cornwall for Agile on the Beach later this week?

#aotb23

thirstybear, 2 months ago to random

It’s always nice to see ideas I published resurface and gain traction after being dormant for years 🤷‍♂️

thirstybear, 5 months ago to random

“In English and Welsh law, computers are assumed to be “reliable” unless proven otherwise.“

Bless… I expect they believe the moon is made of cheese and that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is a good basis for a system of government.

Off the top of my head, s/w is only reliable if it

• is readable
• is structured well so its intent is obvious
• has good tests and they all pass
  (I’m sure I have missed stuff)

And even then IT PROBABLY DOES NOT WORK

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-on-computer-evidence-to-avoid-horizon-repeat-ministers-urged