Jessica Joy Kerr Profile picture
Apr 5, 2022 11 tweets 8 min read Read on X
and now what we’ve all been waiting for: @KevlinHenney keynote #QConLondon

“If there’s any probability, even so close to zero it won’t fit in a floating point number, it is not impossible”
Representations are never perfect.
“Software development is the creation and maintaining of illusions.”
@KevlinHenney #QConLondon
Programming paradigms are ways to organize our illusions.
@KevlinHenney #QConLondon
Not every question has an answer.
If it did — if our languages were complete — then they’d have to be inconsistent.
We’re not doing mathematics; this is programming.
@KevlinHenney #QConLondon
Our numbers are not the same as math numbers.
“Usually works, by accident” — this describes most software. @KevlinHenney #QConLondon
Don’t think you’re measuring engagement when you’re measuring clicks & shares.
Be honest about what you’re measuring.

@KevlinHenney #QConLondon
If your rodamap shows only one road,
it’s not much of a roadmap, is it? More of an itinerary.

A roadmap should show future forks!

@KevlinHenney #QConLondon
It is not possible to prioritize by business value.
Only by estimated business value.

@KevlinHenney #QConLondon
(and do you measure it afterward to check your estimates?)
Last “impossible thing:” quantifying tech debt as financial debt.
It’s a metaphor, not identity!
There is not repaying technical debt, only suffering (that’s my word) — paying the carrying cost.

@KevlinHenney #QConLondon
oh no a rodamap

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More from @jessitron

Nov 29, 2022
I laugh at people who talk about “exactly-once delivery”
The specs that claim it have been proven wrong.

But we have methods (like idempotency) to do things well.
@mjpt777 #YowLondon
Make handover/resumption protocols.
“This is what I thought I sent to you last, did you get it?”
“Here’s what I got from you last, let’s work it out from there”

@mjpt777 #YowLondon
These handover/resumption protocols are then useful when you need to switchover to a different datacenter.

@mjpt777 #YowLondon
Read 4 tweets
Nov 29, 2022
Most scientific research about fun and humor is…
scientific. Not fun, and not humorous.

But it turns out that ducks are the funniest animal.

@holly_cummins #YowLondon Image
There’s something shameful about fun.

This harks back to Puritans, who even banned Christmas because it was fun.

@holly_cummins #YowLondon Image
Programming is fun, so software development has the potential to be fun.

@holly_cummins #YowLondon Image
Read 15 tweets
Nov 29, 2022
85% of data projects fail.
Yikes! How can we do better?

@jessetanderson at #YowLondon
“AI is not a strategy.” @jessetanderson #YowLondon
You need about ten data engineers and one data scientist.
also an operations team.

@jessetanderson #YowLondon
Read 12 tweets
Oct 27, 2022
Software is magic because it scales so well.
I can take the output of my brain and scale it to the world.

@KentBeck
If we go from Idea to Behavior change to new Idea…
how quickly we can do that depends on the structure.
@kentbeck
If we go Idea to Behavior to Idea to Behavior
as fast as we can,
it’s gonna get slower and slower and then the developers will get frustrated and leave and the new developers will be even slower…

So sometimes, we make a structure change before the behavior change.
@KentBeck
Read 14 tweets
Oct 26, 2022
SRE teams try to keep toil under 50%.

Only 50% of work that has no enduring value...

@DivineOps #QConSF
SREs in the audience? (Dozens of hands)
Experienced SREs? (Like 2.5 hands)
We @RedHat used to ship products. Build a thing, package it, send to customers. Then it was their problem. Customer hires a consultant or figures it out.

Now we mostly ship services. Now it’s our headache, reliability and uptime etc. It’s different

@DivineOps #QConSF
Read 19 tweets
Oct 26, 2022
In which @mipsytipsy speaks up about the Engineer<->Manager Pendulum

#QConSF Image
The team deserves someone
who wants to manage people.
who is not bitter about meetings
who is interested in sociotechnical systems and nurturing careers
whose technical skills are strong enough to evaluate their work.

@mipsytipsy #QConSF
And each of us deserves a long, interesting career.

Trick: don’t self-identify as a manager OR as engineer.

Look at yourself as a Technologist
Or Technical Leader
… who needs engineering AND management skills.

@mipsytipsy #QConSF
Read 27 tweets

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