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Essays on software development, teams and the craft of building things that last.
Essays from 2025
5 essays from 2025
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When “Don’t Repeat Yourself” Makes Code Worse – Learning Elixir And Re-learning Recursion
Thanks to a conversation with Erik Schön, I was learning Elixir while waiting for my plane back from DevLin 2025. I decided to go through the Roman numeral kata to slowly get into Elixir. When the algorithm was coming together I hit this interesting moment where I saw a lot of repetition, and asked Claude …
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The 10x Developer Myth Has Destroyed Our Ability to Learn in The Software Industry
When we think of software development as a single-person endeavor – the reason the 10x developer myth matters – we miss what actually matters: it’s a team sport, it’s about managing growing complexity, and it’s about communication, coordination, and planning. Research suggests the 10x myth might be just that – when you factor in code …
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Agile Project Management—The Delusional Role
Bare with me, I’m trying to make a point. Read through, leave the flame wars for other posts. An Agile Project Manager is an oxymoron, a contradiction. You can’t be “agile” and “project manager” at the same time. Here’s some examples: Why? You correctly ask: BECAUSE the theories of the world for Project Management and …
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How AI will clog our product development processes…
I recognize the temptation. “If I could only do this fastidious planning work a bit faster, I’d get home earlier…” Sure, it’s easy to see how AI would write User Stories faster… BUT: the real world is different: the whole point of product work is navigating uncertainty. We don’t know what’s valuable yet. That’s the …
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Software Has Outgrown Project Management (And PMI Knows It)
The same software that runs your morning train, powers your VISA card, and keeps airplanes in the sky has evolved far beyond what traditional project management can handle. “Captain’s Log, Stardate 2024: We’re lost, but we’re making good time according to the project plan!” If this sounds absurd, that’s because it is. Yet this is …
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