@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

JeffGrigg

@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social

agile software developer of several decades

https://twitter.com/JeffGrigg1

searchable at https://www.tootfinder.ch/

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

tess, to random
@tess@mastodon.social avatar

I want to be more active in different discussions on here but don't want to dump irrelevant stuff onto everyone or make additional accounts. I wish we could have different personas or sub-profiles, so I could read a single TL but post to different feeds that could be subscribed separately.

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@tess @oblomov @aeva @Vrimj

I have also thought that I would like to label/segregate my posts by topic/group/interest.

I feel that the inability to separate person from topic contributes heavily to social media being driven heavily by identity politics โ€” to the point that it drowns out most everything else.

It's hard to discuss Design Patterns when millions are screaming about polarizing political issues.

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@oblomov @tess @aeva @Vrimj

Usenet got some things totally right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

Life would be easier for many scientists if the general public would get past the stereotype that all science is just about "surprise" and novelty and completely unknown things and that studies don't matter if they match your lived experience ๐Ÿ˜ญ there is massive need to document well known things into the scientific record and establish specific evidence examples for them in ways that will be legible and useful for policy, public action, etc....!

Media really fuels this misconception

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@gdinwiddie @grimalkina

Yes.
Still, good scientific studies can sharpen and refine our knowledge, even when we think we have it all sussed out. We fool ourselves quite often. And miss things.

ZachWeinersmith, to comics
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

Full comic here: http://smbc-comics.com/comic/hands-down

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@ZachWeinersmith

They think that tentacles are a way of keeping it from getting weird?

Obviously, they don't understand it at all. ๐Ÿ™„

๐Ÿ˜ˆ

๐Ÿ™

marick, to emacs
@marick@mstdn.social avatar

I am being a good little programmer and adding docstrings to some Elixir code. I hate looking at it. It so gets in the way of the code; see below.

I want an #emacs keypress that hides all lines between two regexps (One for @โ€ฆdocโ€ฆโ€โ€โ€; one for the ending โ€œโ€โ€.) Weirdly, I canโ€™t find anything. I used to be good at Elisp/Emacs programming, but I pretty much stopped doing that around 30 years ago. So looking for something similar I can hack on (or package that obviates the need to).

Any pointers?

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@cammerman @marick

I still favor the Extreme Programming position that comments other than "why" should be eliminated by improving the code such that they are no longer needed.

With an exception for "public APIs," consumed by others, who may not have access to your source code and tests.

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@marick

Very Early On I became Extremely Skeptical of teachers saying that "What the author meant was, โ€ฆ"

And my skepticism seemed largely confirmed by writers who responded to readers comments with positive affirmations regardless of how "crazy" and "offbeat" their comments.

Like, "Whatever it means to you, that's OK with me!" (kinda') says the author โ€” as long as they're getting paid, and you're not attacking them.

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@qurlyjoe @paninid @marick

My personal experience was that I always had Very Specific Things in Mind when I wrote.

Teachers asked me about them.

I would not explain.

They could not guess โ€ฆ successfully.

That convinced me that their "literary analysis" was mostly fraud.

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

I can't figure out if mastodon is a high context culture or not. People seem to be expected to give long introductions and do a lot of identity/positionality disclosure, but also an enormous reply guy culture which is defined by low context drive-by. Conversational turn-taking is extremely low compared to other platforms ime, but depth-seeking is high. What an interesting mix.

*obviously, these experiences are all situated within my own network effects, and I'm not well networked here.

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@grimalkina
My "drive by" (after reading all replies on this thread) is that I think "low context" is probably a bigger part of the culture here.

And I just did not do the "Introduce yourself!" thing here. It did not seem necessary, nor very useful, to me. But that could be just me.

simon, to random
@simon@simonwillison.net avatar

Several of the major social media platforms - Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter - have effectively declared war on linking to things and I absolutely hate it

"Link in my bio" / "Link in thread" / "Link in first comment"... or increasingly no link at all, just an unsourced screenshot of a page

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@cnx @simon @mhoye @anildash

When I see a screenshot of an off-platform post, I often go find the source, and post a reply with the link (URL).

Some groups don't allow links. I regularly tell them just how unhelpful that is.

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

"Randomized trials cannot address all causal questions of importance in medicine and health policy and may have limited generalizability; thus, investigators may need to use observational studies as a source of evidence to address causal questions. The challenge, then, is to balance the importance of addressing the causal questions for which observational studies are needed with caution regarding the reliance on strong assumptions to support causal conclusions."

A challenge of our time truly

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@grimalkina

Oh, it's not just a massive intellectual struggle within the scientific community. It's become a hot "identity politics" issue in the general population. (โ€ฆ of those who argue online.)

"Deniers" shout "Double Blind Randomized Controlled Trials are The Gold Standard of Science! I will not accept any 'evidence' that 'falls short' of that!!!"

โ€ฆ

matthewskelton, to random

"But how does it scale?" is a common question for organizational transformation initiatives. The answer is that it scales primarily via enthusiasm and learning, not via structure or framework.

Example:

Let's say the required outcome is to move 100 people over 10 kilometers. Do you:

  1. Build a juggernaut that fits 100 people ๐Ÿšš - the "framework" approach
  2. Organize a 10km fun run and train people up ๐Ÿƒ - the nimble, humane approach

The 10km run is the way

#transformation #FastFlow

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@sol_hsa @matthewskelton

Yes. In all realistic scenarios, you'll need to hire a bus.

Train everyone to run?

What about the disabled?

And, anyway, 10km takes a little over two hours to walk, for most healthy people.

fasterthanlime, to random
@fasterthanlime@hachyderm.io avatar

Ah. I see.

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@gsuberland @fasterthanlime

That was not my impression.

And I'm considered (mostly) neurotypical.

(Makes me wish I had saved my answers.)

Some of the language is pretty strong, in my opinion: often, rarely, "physically stuck" (on a mental task), need, struggle, distressing, passionate, anxiety, rarely stuck in loops, anxiety, unaware (of other events), "I have trouble" vs "I don't mind" (on the latter, I say "Yea; it's annoying. But tolerable."), difficult, accidently, uncomfortable, ...

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

Love being a person who has an extremely strong value and practice of conversational turn-taking in an industry that is literally the worst I've EVER seen on this particular skill

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@grimalkina @complexmath

We were on a team conference call with our boss, who Would NOT Stop Talking!!! And who went off on a mistaken tangent. Several of us spoke up, to interrupt, but he could not hear anything, as his speakers automatically muted while he was speaking -- which was continuous!

One team member got so frustrated, she threw a stapler! (At the wall. It left a fairly nasty gouge. ๐Ÿ™„)

molly0xfff, to web
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

If you've ever found yourself missing the "good old days" of the , what is it that you miss? (Interpret "it" broadly: specific websites? types of activities? feelings? etc.) And approximately when were those good old days?

No wrong answers โ€” I'm working on an article and wanted to get some outside thoughts.

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@brooke @molly0xfff

Yes, I've often said that today's cell phones are just like (and much worse than) the GPS "ankle bracelets" of convicted criminals on parole!

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

โ€œHow do you accidentally run for President of Iceland? | by Anna Andersenโ€

Glad somebody wrote about this because itโ€™s an objectively hilarious UX case study

(And they just announced that eleven people managed to get the requisite number of endorsements in time) https://uxdesign.cc/how-do-you-accidentally-run-for-president-of-iceland-0d71a4785a1e

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@baldur

I wonder what the risk level is of someone else intentionally and "maliciously" registering you to be a candidate!

All citizens over 35 years old are at risk!!!

And (for the mistaken and "victims"), I wonder what the odds are of getting endorsed -- from the long list confusing people, so they chose randomly or incorrectly. It's 1,500 out of the 382,000 population.

KFosterMarks, to random
@KFosterMarks@mastodon.social avatar

Reading "Coding Boot Camps: Enabling Women to Enter Computing Professions" https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3440891 this morning. Published in 2021, a few years after I graduated from a coding bootcamp.

The context at that time is described as such: "The difficulty in finding enough entry-level candidates to fill jobs led to companies to consider
hiring from boot camps, creating a demand for the students that boot camps were supplying."

โ“ Is there still this demand for entry-level coders, I wonder?

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@KFosterMarks

I'd be glad to contribute my lack of knowledge on the subject, ...
๐Ÿ™„

I'm kind of skeptical of boot camps' ability to bring an inexperienced person "up to speed." Basics of syntax, tools, and a few "recipes" for simple things, sure. But I think most professions require a depth of knowledge to really be successful.

And then, ...
Are boot camps really a benefit for women in particular?
Hmmm...

14 women isn't much of a sample size, I think.

CSLee, to seresearchers
@CSLee@mastodon.social avatar

NEW RESEARCH PAPER OUT! In this paper, @grimalkina and I explore how review anxiety is maintained and exacerbated to develop a model of code review anxiety. We also go a step further to develop and test the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral intervention for code review anxiety, so that we can reduce code review anxiety in an evidence-based and empirically-supported way (because science > vibes): https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/8k5a4

@seresearchers

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@CSLee @Adora

I wonder how much of the result is due to the Hawthorne effect (and related): Not just that the participants knew that they were being studied, but that some of them received the anxiety management intervention, and so expected it to work, and expected that they should manage their anxiety responses.

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@CSLee @Adora

And also, of course, I wonder about relationships with traditional approaches that are more along the lines of trying to train and convince the code reviewer to not be a jerk about it.

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@grimalkina @CSLee @Adora

I totally deserved negative feedback on that. I did not read the paper carefully.

My lame excuses include that I'm not skilled or experienced in academic papers, and that I was in a hurry to go on a bicycle ride on a nice day before the rain expected to hit mid-afternoon.

Still, I was thinking, while riding, "Good thesis defense, Carol!"

(And that my opinion on that should not be given too much weight, for the reasons I gave above. ๐Ÿ™„ )

tanepiper, to random
@tanepiper@tane.codes avatar

I see people on LinkedIn are at the "Let's get AI to make memes" stage and now I'm just thinking people are poking at AIs to just doing things because they have no idea what to use them for.

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@tanepiper

โ€œWell yes, we destroyed the planet to power AI machines.
But for a beautiful moment in time everyone could generate memes!โ€

MrLovenstein, to random
@MrLovenstein@mastodon.social avatar

Secret Panel HERE ๐Ÿ“œ https://tapas.io/episode/3150022

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@MrLovenstein

KFosterMarks, to random
@KFosterMarks@mastodon.social avatar

Reading Amy J. Ko's online book "Cooperative Software Development" and she writes:

"There are some approaches to specifying requirements formally. These techniques allow requirements engineers to automatically identify conflicting requirements, so they donโ€™t end up proposing a design that canโ€™t possibly exist. Some even use systems to make requirements traceable, meaning the high level requirement can be linked directly to the code that meets that requirement."

(โ“ question in comments)

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@gvwilson @KFosterMarks

Like I said above:

  1. We know how to do it.
  2. Turns out, nobody really cares.

https://mastodon.social/@JeffGrigg/112238171412448942

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

"Strategy is when you have a bunch of important meetings where you talk about stuff you'd like to do in theory, which you then completely ignore so you can react quickly and do whatever random people ask you to do every day."

โ€”MunchieMom on Reddit

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@gdinwiddie @raganwald

"Do or do not. There is no try."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ4yd2W50No&ab_channel=MonterreyJack

arstechnica, to random
@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

Formula 1 chief appalled to find team using Excel to manage 20,000 car parts

Williams team leader may only be shocked because he hasn't worked IT.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/03/formula-1-chief-appalled-to-find-team-using-excel-to-manage-20000-car-parts/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@arstechnica

As an experienced I.T. professional, I'm literally ZERO percent surprised by any of what the article says. ๐Ÿ™„

jonathanpeterson, to random
@jonathanpeterson@c.im avatar

@mekkaokereke I had zero interest in following the OJ trial, because it was sensationalistic trash. We all knew he did it, and like most white Americans I was surprised he was acquitted, though I had seen enough reporting to know that there was a LOT of reasonable doubt evidence presented because of racist police and what I though were careless evidence handling. Now that I have read that transcript - smh. It's hard to imagine the DA was even willing to go to trial against a well funded defense knowing THAT monster was going to be put on the stand.

JeffGrigg,
@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social avatar

@jonathanpeterson @mekkaokereke

Yes. This was similar to my thinking at the time.

I did not know about the "problems" with their "star witness."

But the rest of the trial, like "If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit." just made me think that the prosecution was fundamentally botches in more ways than I could know or understand at the time.

Yes, this improves my understanding.
Sincere thanks.

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