Attention Google: License ActiveSync!20 days beforeIf any of the Googlers-in-charge are listening, here’s my pure-gold tip of…Clairvoyant Software Engineering

No ship ums2023I’ve been thinking about the path that software dandelions take toward becoming…BarCampAustinMarch 2007I am sitting here at BarCampAustin, the precursor to the SXSW 2007…While ripping out old code and refactoring late last night, I muttered out something that I just had to write down: one of the most profound skills of a software engineer is the ability to foresee the moment when the negative consequences of implementing a feature outweigh its benefits. Quickly. Perhaps, that’s why the 37signals folks came up with their “It just doesn’t matter” mantra. Obviously, the other important skill is the ability to communicate and argue the point. Perhaps, that’s why all too often, software engineering fails massively on a larger scale.