@underlap@fosstodon.org
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

underlap

@underlap@fosstodon.org

Husband, father, grandfather, follower of Jesus, but very much a work in progress.

Retired software developer, visiting lecturer, IETF editor. Likes repairability. BTW I use arch.

Hobbies: reading, blogging, running, sailing.

Delighted to live in Winchester, UK. Involved in a local church.

Banner: Derwent Water
Profile picture: Dorset coast

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

jtonline, to random
@jtonline@mastodon.me.uk avatar

Celebrating.

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@jtonline Congratulations!

harrymccracken, to random
@harrymccracken@mastodon.social avatar

I forgot to celebrate the 60th anniversary of BASIC yesterday. But in 2014, I tried to pull out all the stops in my 50th anniversary story. https://time.com/69316/basic/

underlap, (edited )
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@harrymccracken BASIC was my first programming language. We wrote programs on paper in maths lessons at school, our teacher typed them into a computer at the local university (correcting any obvious syntax errors), ran them, printed the output, and brought the results back to the next lesson.

I became a competent programmer in due course, contrary to Dijkstra's critique of the language.

dalelane, to random
@dalelane@mastodon.org.uk avatar

The wallpaper in the office here is a list of patents - with the patent number, title, and inventors names.

I’ve been looking to see if I can spot where it repeats, but so far can’t find it!

List of patents
List of patents
List of patents

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@dalelane Presumably emulsioned walls say "This wall intentionally left blank"?

henrikjernevad, to random
@henrikjernevad@mastodon.social avatar

All blog posts are now tagged in an attempt to make the blog more browsable. Each post also features a “Related reading” section at the bottom which links to other posts with the same tag(s).

https://henko.net/blog/i-added-tags/

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@henrikjernevad Very nice.

collinsworth, to random
@collinsworth@hachyderm.io avatar

I hate to say it, but I miss having an algorithm.

Mastodon content is overwhelmingly non-stop variations on "everything sucks, we're all fucked," to a degree I don't feel like Twitter was even at the height of the pandemic. But at least with Twitter you got a few laughs in with your depression and despair.

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@collinsworth You're following the wrong people. Try following if you want to lighten up your home timeline. @xkcd is good if you like XKCD. etc.

jhpratt, to random
@jhpratt@mastodon.social avatar

As of today, Donald Trump is a convicted criminal.

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@jhpratt What's your source? I don't see this in the newspapers.

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@jhpratt Thanks. That seems like big news, but there's no mention of it in the newspapers afaict.

SoenkeSchwenk, to random
@SoenkeSchwenk@mastodon.online avatar

Everyone wants software architecture documentation until they realize it means constant updates and carefully crafted content and diagrams.

underlap, (edited )
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@SoenkeSchwenk I think there's some value in keeping old architecture or design docs without necessarily keeping them up to date. The original rationale is valuable information and doesn't tend to go out of date. They just need to be treated as historical documents.

monospace, to ruby
@monospace@floss.social avatar

"Tests provide the only reliable documentation of design. The story they tell remains true long after paper documents become obsolete and human memory fails. Write your tests as if you expect your future self to have amnesia. Remember that you will forget; write tests that remind you of the story once you have." (Sandi Metz, "Practical Object-Oriented Design")

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@monospace Tests, at least partially, answer the question "What does this code do?", but don't necessarily help answer the question "Why was this code written?", something that a design document can describe and which will continue to remain true because it's a description of the past. No?

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@monospace Yeah, writing down the rationale for significant design decisions is a good idea.

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Is "release early, release often" as good a policy for personal blog posts as it is for software?

Certainly writing helps clarify your thinking, but what about the publication step? Is publishing a post and responding to feedback an essential step in finding out what you have to say on a subject?

Discuss.

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@iwein That's an interesting position. I certainly like getting an insight into others' thinking, so it makes sense to be open with my thinking including any gaps and rough edges.

I guess for major revisions of a post, it would be helpful to note these in some way in case anyone re-reads the post.

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@henrikjernevad Polish to your heart's content!

jtonline, to random
@jtonline@mastodon.me.uk avatar

Urg, chaos. Can open, chaos everywhere. Source control like it's the 90s. 🤦‍♂️

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@jtonline Argh. CMVC! I think I'd suppressed any recollection of having used that beast until you mentioned it.

cvs, svn, and git was a progressive emergence from the earlier dark ages of version control.

amoroso, to random
@amoroso@fosstodon.org avatar

Uncommon opinion (but not necessarily unpopular): I love languages with large standard libraries. I enjoy flipping through the language documentation, scouting for interesting functions or classes that may eventually come in handy.

My favorite large library language is Common Lisp but of course there are many others such as Smalltalk, Python, and Java.

underlap, (edited )
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@amoroso Have you seen hoogle, for searching Haskell libraries by type signature

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@amoroso Well imagine you want a library function that converts an Int to a String. You can search hoogle for "Int -> String" and it will find all the functions with that type signature. Having come from a Java/C++/Go/Rust background, that's pretty neat and is something other languages could emulate.

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

New post: Writing better software design documents https://underlap.org/writing-better-software-design-documents

Gargron, to random
@Gargron@mastodon.social avatar

Me, feeding 2 people and 2 cats on a 60k EUR salary without benefits (because technically self-employed), reading those comments that claim a 501(c)(3) is some kind of nefarious scheme to hide money 😐

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@Gargron Thank you for doing all that you do and for not selling out to some large corporation. The 501(c)(3) move seems entirely sensible.

Mastodon, to mastodon
@Mastodon@mastodon.social avatar

forms new 501(c)(3) non-profit entity with new board of directors in the United States to facilitate tax-deductible donations and in-kind support:

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/04/mastodon-forms-new-u.s.-non-profit/

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@Mastodon "Twitter, one of the world’s leading social media platforms" seemed untinged with irony.

ben, to random
@ben@werd.social avatar

I wrote about the life experiences (mine and my family's) that led to my worldview, why I believe in an open, progressive world, and why I'm motivated to build an open social web. https://werd.io/2024/where-im-coming-from

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@ben Very interesting. Thank you for taking the time to craft that post!

ondrej, to random
@ondrej@sury.org avatar

These are the iKeys for the new Thales Luna HSM.

My precious!

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@ondrej @ondrejkolin If the root of trust for DNSSEC depends on the contents of that plastic bag, then wouldn't that be very attractive to bad actors?

clobrano, to random
@clobrano@fosstodon.org avatar

How does anybody get good in writing software design docs? The more I try, the less I feel confident 🙄

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@clobrano @henrikjernevad I gave some examples in my blog post. Unfortunately my design docs pre-2007 are confidential and I can't access them.

Generally, over the years my design docs have become shorter. I don't include detail which should be code or code comments as that will tend to go out of date quickly.

Capturing rationale and alternatives considered is like gold dust and a great gift to my future self. (It's really hard to remember that kind of stuff years later.)

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@clobrano @henrikjernevad Also, writing introductory material and defining terms early on has the advantage that my viewpoint is closer to that of a beginner. That doesn't last long!

underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@clobrano @henrikjernevad What headings do you include in a draft design doc? Here are some suggestions:

  • Requirements
  • Scope
  • Out of scope
  • Architecture
  • Interfaces
  • Major dependencies
  • Operating systems supported
  • Hardware platforms supported
  • Configuration
  • Security
  • Performance
  • Compatibility
  • Interoperabiity
  • Internationalisation
  • Alternatives considered
underlap,
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@clobrano @henrikjernevad Interesting. That kind of design document is geared towards planning. The other main kind is geared towards describing the (intended) state of the system you are building. The second type gives you an opportunity to think through the options for how to structure the code before you get too invested in a particular piece of code.

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