End Of An Era

End Of An Era

By | | Comments 0 Comment

Frederick Brooks died last week. He was a giant of the software industry, and deserves wider recognition for his contributions. Start by reading the New York Times article linked above, then grab a copy of The Mythical Man-Month. Few works have moved me so profoundly, at least if you measure by number of times I reference them (which, incidentally, is roughly how Google’s PageRank works).

Rest in peace, Mr Brooks. I’m thankful for you, and I’m sure you won’t be forgotten by those who build our castles in the air.

Adventures With APIs

Adventures With APIs

By | | Comments 0 Comment

I’ve written before about the advantages of knowing how to dig around in DevTools to reverse engineer website interfaces. This week I’ve had three further instances of doing this work to good effect.

The Friendly Skies

Firstly, I travel a lot, enough that I now have Executive Platinum status on American Airlines. This means I’m first in line for complimentary upgrades, but only if there are seats available. So I wanted an easy way to go straight to a complete seat map to look at availability without needing to go through a full search on the website. Turns out there’s a magic URL that does just that, and all you need to do is pass it some parameters. So I present to you, a quick and dirty seat map lookup form. Give it a try!

While that’s cool, I wondered if I could make it simpler by leveraging a flight data API like the one from FlightLabs. That was pretty straightforward as well. Though I couldn’t embed it in WordPress, I did script it up in Python for your enjoyment. Just pass it a flight number, and it’ll do the rest. Neat!

Shake It Off

This week Taylor Swift tour tickets went on sale, and needless to say it broke Ticketmaster, despite their best attempts to add friction via pre-registration to enter a lottery to win a code to join a queue to enter a room to maybe get lucky enough to click fast enough to buy tickets. Sadly I was unsuccessful at securing seats despite dozens attempts across several days. But I did learn something about the API Ticketmaster used to check queue status, so all was not lost.

When I first joined the queue, the following was displayed:

Of course I was curious: how many more than 2000 people were there… 5000? 25000? A million? So I opened up DevTools, and took a look at the calls coming back from the server to check status. Lo and behold, there was a wealth of info in an easily digested JSON block:

Wouldn’t it have been helpful to display that information to the user? At least the exact users in line, and the expected service time value. No idea why it wasn’t shown, other than Ticketmaster not being known as a terribly customer obsessed company.

Automating ******** Across ****

The final example can’t speak of publicly other to say my penchant for automation will save my employer a sizable amount of money. In these uncertain economic times, that’s always a good thing.

You Are Not Alone

You Are Not Alone

By | | Comments 0 Comment

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

It’s been a strange season for tech work, with the boom of the last few years (decades even?) feeling like it’s coming to a screeching halt. A lot of people suddenly finding themselves out of a job, wondering what’s next.

While I’m relieved not to have been affected this time, I’ve been laid off before, and I remember the feeling of helplessness. Of wondering if I should have known better or cut and run before things got bad. And most of all (though it took me some time to name it): loneliness. All the relationships I’d built up at the workplace, while not my best friends, were a large part of my social life, and to have them ripped away with no warning took quite a toll.

For those in that boat right now, know that it’s not your fault. Really, it’s not your fault. Take it from someone who’s been there (on both sides of the table): it’s not your fault. Take time to acknowledge your feelings. And while I can’t promise you that something better is just over the horizon, there might be! And that is an encouraging thought.

Kindness Trumps Rightness

Kindness Trumps Rightness

By | | Comments 0 Comment

Regularly I’ll hear people claim “I don’t care what anyone says about me.” While I appreciate the sentiment of confidence such a statement is intended to communicate, I believe it’s unhelpful, for several reasons.

First, I don’t believe it’s possible. Humans are social creatures, and much of our mental software is set up to be concerned with our standing with other people. Some of us perhaps more so than others can set that aside at times, but no one can turn it off completely.

Second, living with disregard for others’ perspectives on your own life and actions deprives you of valuable wisdom. Of course one shouldn’t take all opinions equally, and one must discern how to synthesize the input of others with your own evaluations. But more data is rarely a bad thing. Listen, then decide.

Most importantly, however, is that knowing how those you come in contact with feel about you is a healthy way to measure if you’re having a positive influence on them. At the end of the day I want every person I interact with to come away feeling that their lives are better for having known me. That’s more valuable than pretty much any other measure of impact I can imagine, and it’s true both personally and professionally. Absolutely nothing is more important to your career than being kind. Not education. Not skill. Not drive. Nothing.

So yes, I care what everyone says about me. And you should too.

Meta Post

Meta Post

By | | Comments 0 Comment

Really enjoyed Two Heads Are Better Than One, a discussion of the various ways technology has allowed humans to have “second brains.” I realized in some ways this blog is one such implementation; it’s a place I can capture thoughts and stories so that I can recall them later without keeping them in working memory.

As a bonus, via the article I discovered Obsidian, which I’m now dying to try out. I’m a sucker for Markdown and the power of plain text processing tools.

A Tale Of Three Meeting Invites

A Tale Of Three Meeting Invites

By | | Comments 0 Comment

Subject: Planning document

(body of invite is blank)

Subject: Discussion on planning document

Agenda

  • Review document content
  • Finalize edits
  • Action items for customer review

Subject: Internal discussion on planning document

Purpose of this meeting is to finalize the document that will be presented to the customer next week. Please read in advance of meeting (link).

Agenda (unless you know a better one)

  • Review comments made on document content
  • Finalize edits in real-time as a group
  • Decide on action items for customer review
Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

By | | Comments 0 Comment

Hard to believe it’s been 3 years since I started taking AWS Certification exams, eventually passing all 12 that were active at the time, thanks in part to virtual proctoring and a knack I’ve had since college for being good at multiple-choice tests.

In order to stay current one must retake the exams within a three year window, so I’ve been working my way back through them. Over the summer I passed Solutions Architect Professional and DevOps Engineer Professional, and yesterday I completed the Security Specialty. Thanks to lower-level exams auto-renewing when professional exams are passed, that brings me to 7 exams that will remain current through 2025.

Seven is a nice number; don’t think I’ll bother renewing the others unless a need arises.

Progress Report

Progress Report

By | | Comments 2 comments

At the beginning of this year I made two resolutions:

  1. Post on this blog at least once per month
  2. Learn a new programming language

For the first one, so far so good. For the second, not so much. I read a book on Clojure, but haven’t yet had a reason to use it beyond tutorial exercises, so can’t really say I’ve learned it. Maybe it’s just that these days I’m thinking more about systems than software, and thus language choices seem less important?

Speaking of book reading, though, I’m well on my way to achieving my meta resolution (to read the same number of books as my age, every year, for the rest of my life). According to Goodreads I’ve completed 39 books so far against a goal of 43 (seven books ahead of schedule). Should be no problem to get to the finish line and beyond.

Here are the five star highlights:

Honorable mention goes to Range, which I can’t recommend enough for anyone who feels like they’ve missed out on their calling by meandering through a number of life experiences. Generalists make the best leaders and problem solvers, so embrace the variety of perspectives you can bring to the table. Real life is not like golf or chess or programming only in assembly.

Reap The Whirlwind

Reap The Whirlwind

By | | Comments 0 Comment

This summer my family and I went on a two week European vacation. Six cities in fourteen days is no joke, but we had a blast, saw a ton, and stayed healthy throughout. For something different, I thought I’d catalog our activities here.

Day 1 – Rome

  • Land at Leonardi da Vinci International Airport
  • Taxi ride to the hotel (aggressive driver kept us on our toes)
  • Jetlag recovery nap (essential)
  • Pizza at Taverna Rossini
  • Pico Gelato for dessert (tears of joy were shed)

Day 2 – Rome

  • Trevi Fountain
  • Colosseum
  • Piazza del Campidoglio
  • Pantheon
  • Lunch at La Soffitta Renovatio
  • The Vatican, including the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s Basilica
  • More gelato at Pico
  • Quick dinner at the hotel before crashing in bed

Day 3 – Rome

  • Temple of Asclepius
  • Walk through Villa Borghese
  • Piazza di Spagna (the Spanish Steps)
  • Trevi Fountain (again)
  • Vicus Caprarius (ruins under Trevi)
  • Life-changing carbonara at Al Simeto (no one spoke English, a good sign)
  • Even more gelato at Pico

Day 4 – Florence

  • Morning train to Florence, and walk to our Airbnb that was right on the square
  • Accademia Gallery to see Michelangelo’s David (breathtaking)
  • Uffizi Gallery (Birth of Venus, amongst other masterpieces)
  • Life-changing chianti at La Buchetta, and the steak was pretty good too
  • Evening walk at the Piazza della Signoria

Day 5 – Florence

  • Climb to the top of the Brunelleschi Dome
  • Tour of the Duomo cathedral
  • Cappelle Medicee
  • Basilica di San Lorenzo
  • Trattoria Sergio Gozzi for lunch with an old friend (and killer truffles)
  • Battistero di San Giovanni
  • Palazzo Strozzi
  • Ponte Vecchio
  • Gelateria Edoardo il gelato biologico (obviously)
  • Quick pizza from a grab and go

Day 6 – Alps

  • Walk to the Florence train station
  • Train through Bologna, Bolzano, Innsbruck
  • Arrived in Munich in the afternoon
  • Dinner at Haxnbauer im Scholastikahaus (pork knuckles FTW!)

Day 7 – Munich

  • Bus ride to Bavaria
  • Neuschwanstein Castle
  • Quick lunch (sausages and beer)
  • Oberammergau
  • Linderhof Castle

Day 8 – Munich

  • Morning run in the Englischer Garten
  • Tour of Dachau (a sobering and essential experience)
  • Shopping in Marienplatz
  • Walkthrough of Peterskirche (including a climb of the tower)
  • Stroll through the Englischer Garten in the rain
  • Dinner at Hofbräuhaus
  • Midnight sleeper train to Paris

Day 9 – Paris

  • Taxi to the hotel to freshen up
  • Walk through Jardin des Plantes
  • Brunch at Clint (poached eggs, yummy)
  • Recovery nap (absolutely essential)
  • Shopping in Le Marais
  • Dinner at Robert et Louise (beef cooked over an open fire plus a Bordeaux)
  • Walk through Place des Vosges and Place de la Bastille
  • Cards in the hotel lobby

Day 10 – Paris

  • Stroll through Montmartre
  • The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris
  • Eglise Saint-Pierre de Montmartre
  • Cheese sampling from a local shop
  • Walk past Moulin Rouge
  • Arc de Triomphe (only a couple quick photos)
  • Eiffel Tower (didn’t go up though)
  • Pont Alexandre III Bridge
  • Eglise de Saint Germain des Pres
  • Macarons from Boutique Pierre Hermé
  • Le Jardin du Luxembourg
  • Panthéon (photo from afar)
  • Cathédrale Notre-Dame (just an outside view)
  • Ile de la Cité
  • Sainte-Chapelle (beautiful stained glass)
  • Lunch at Brasserie Les Deux Palais
  • Quick walk past Musée du Louvre
  • Tried to tour the Catacombs, but alas they were booked out
  • Crepes from Au Beurre Salé
  • Well-earned sleep

Day 11 – London

  • Eurostar through the Chunnel (delightful train and fast!)
  • Tube to Pimlico station
  • Bit of recuperation at the Westminster Hotel
  • Tour of the Churchill War Rooms
  • Dinner at The Admiralty (Trafalgar Square)
  • Walk past Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Parliament

Day 12 – London

  • Several hours of exploration at the National History Museum (Dippy!)
  • Nap on the lawn at Hyde Park
  • Princess Diana Memorial Fountain
  • Science Afternoon Tea at The Drawing Rooms
  • Stroll over Westminster Bridge

Day 13 – Oxford

  • Morning train to Oxford
  • Fish and chips at Wig & Pen
  • Photos at The Eagle and Child (sadly closed due to COVID)
  • Shopping on Cornmarket Street
  • The Sheldonian Theatre
  • The Hertford Bridge (most photographed spot in Oxford)
  • Bodleian Library
  • Blackwell’s Bookshop (bought a rare Isaac Asimov book: The Clock We Live On)
  • Radcliffe Camera
  • University Church of St Mary the Virgin
  • The Bear Inn (serving Oxford since 1242)
  • Christ Church College
  • Merton College
  • Martyrs’ Cross

Day 14 – Journeying

  • Sleep in late
  • Depart Heathrow in the early afternoon
  • And land in San Diego in the late afternoon (hooray for timezones)

And there you have it. Not a bad way to spend a fortnight.

That Lovin’ Feeling

That Lovin’ Feeling

By | | Comments 0 Comment

I’ve done a fair share of production debugging in my career. There’s a heroic Dopamine rush that comes with it, that feeling of diving deep on a problem in a critical situation, finding the solution, and then implementing it to the delight of your customers and teammates (well, either delight or they graciously allow you to live another day).

A similar feeling is experienced any time you build something with your own two hands and see it come to life; that joy is why this blog is named what it is, because I love to build. But as a manager of a technical team, I don’t get the chance to directly build solutions as often as I might like, and when I do, it often represents a failure of some kind. To be successful as a leader, one needs to learn to let the joy of building go, at least the hands-on kind.

Instead, what a manager must cultivate is the joy of watching others succeed, especially those to whom they are charged to mentor as direct reports. Being thrilled when a person shares a difficult problem they solved; rejoicing when a struggling individual responds to your coaching with positive growth. Giving others the spotlight and serving their needs while hidden from view. Learn to get a Dopamine hit from such experiences, and you’ll do well.

And here’s the real kicker: when you achieve it, you’ll have scaled your ability to enjoy your job beyond what was possible before, because you now have a whole team of people whose successes are a source of happiness, versus just your own. Ultimately you’re still building, but now it’s through others.