HN user

vermooten

247 karma
Posts1
Comments207
View on HN

I've read 31 novels since January, far more than I'd read in the last 30 years.

Easy: I read 50 pages every night when I go to bed, instead of screens.

I started with short novels, 150 pages or fewer (chatgpt gave me a reading list).

It quickly became a habit, and it's lovely.

“Parents were discouraged from teaching their children languages other than English, even if they expressed themselves best in that other language.“ Yes my Spanish-speaking father and English-speaking mother decided, when I was growing up in USA in the 60s, not to speak Spanish to me, in case it fucked my learning and development up. Shame, it would have been cool.

Management-speak or not, it's correct. Software development is much more social than it was when I started. Pairing and mobbing get better results faster.

I remember the 90s when manual typesetting and page layout was replaced with Quark Xpress, and when analogue phot retouching was replaced with Photoshop. Lots of highly skilled people suddenly out of work - the ones who didn't retrain to use the new tech. Wasn't overnight but felt like a revolution. Then of course magazine publishing lost out to the internet.

I would love to spend my days making stained glass windows, or as a dry stone-wall builder in the Yorkshire Dales. TS, there's no way to make a living in either.

Not quite true, but I can see why you'd think that. I worked for a reputable SP company in Oxfordshire, legal were all over everything we did. The Hoover debacle did wonders for our business, all of a sudden clients wanted protection from the scammers.

But ok I then went to one in London and some directors were sent to prison for fraud. So OP yes you have a point. It was a dodgy world.

Less is more agile 4 years ago

Waterfall / no process -> Scrum -> Kanban -> XP

Problem I found with this journey is that Scrum concepts pollute Kanban and beyond. We now just do what works, as little process as works for us - and we implicitly review the process with each commit.

I'm still genuinely uncertain why companies are so desperate to get staff into the office.

'Business people' like HR, sales, marketing LOVE being together in person; Engineers somewhat less so. Given that companies tend to be run by 'business people' then yeah I think I just answered my own question.