A fictional example:You're in a volunteer group that does a public service chore, like sprucing up a local park or maintaining a health information website. It's been around for many years. Most people treat each …
On a weekend morning many years ago, the constant low-level radiation of mailing list fracas led me to idly fantasize of sending a beseeching plaintive-yet-rousing post to one of them:Do you think there is no …
My friend Ned Batchelder posted, "A list of commits is not a changelog!" and spurred this post.Summary: We'd all benefit from restoring the distinction between a detailed changelog and brief release notes, but that's hard …
This week, US Presidential candidate Kamala Harris announced that her choice to join her on the ballot as running mate is Tim Walz, who's currently governor of Minnesota.A number of people on Bluesky, in the …
My friend Mel Chua died this week.I'm middle-aged now. I started this weblog as a young adult, and now it's been more than twenty years, and today I'm really feeling that change.Nearly eleven years ago, …
The cybersecurity expert SwiftOnSecurity, a decade ago, wrote a parable called "A Story About Jessica" and posted it to their (now-deleted) Tumblr blog. I found it moving and insightful. The consultancy Superbloom pointed to it …
In mid-June I caught COVID-19 for, I'm pretty sure, the first time. The current dominant variants are transmissible enough that they got past my defenses. I believe I caught the virus either while wearing an …
We live in interesting times.A friend of mine was taking an online class yesterday, and big national news (President Biden deciding not to pursue re-election) interrupted that class. The news distracted everyone and shattered concentration.Sometimes …
Today I’m giving the closing keynote address at PyCon US 2024, sharing “Untold stories from six years working on Python packaging.”I aim to post a fuller transcript with slides within the next several weeks. But, …
If you work on open source software, especially command-line tools, I want you to know about newly available research reports and design guidance, and a user research HOWTO, that you can pick up and reuse.The …
