Five for Friday – February 23 2024

It’s the time of year in Seattle where we see a little sunshine and briefly think that Spring is near…but it’s a trap. It will be raining and 40f next week.

Here are a few things I read this week worth sharing.

  • As I’m writing this, I’m listening to Paramore’s cover of Burning Down the House for the 900th time. Everything I love from TH magically transported to the 21st century.
    Hayley Williams and David Byrne for president!
  • As regular readers know, few things irk me more than people describing why Agile “doesn’t work” and then explaining that their process isn’t Agile at all. Anyway – this article on Agile is a tainted term contains this gem of a quote.
    There are some takes out there that agile is dead. I don’t think that’s quite true, but the word “agile” is certainly dead dead. It’s devoid of any meaning because it means everything and nothing all at once. The principles of agile development are still wonderful and useful, but there is no longer a singular word that can helpfully convey them. Maybe there really never was, but for sure none exists today.”
  • In my never-ending quest to understand enough about LLMs and GenAI to not sound like as much of an idiot as the self-proclaimed experts on linkedin, I read this article on Large Language Models Are Drunk at the Wheel
  • Will Larson has a new book – The Engineering Executive’s Primer. I’ve read the first few chapters, and as is typical with Larson’s writing, it’s packed full of relevant and pragmatic information.
  • Finally – It’s that time of the year again – it’s time for the mediocre sports league that I love anyway (MLS) to kick off another season. If you’re reading this blog / newsletter thingy from outside the US, here’s a write up on the only match you care about. Lionel Messi skill lights up Inter Miami’s MLS season opener.

And that’s it for another week. See you in March!

Similar Posts

  • Activities and Roles

    I’ve been thinking about testing activities and tester roles lately, or more lately, since it seems to be a recurring topic on this blog. I have to admit that I remain a bit surprised how often testers argue about what is and what isn’t testing. So – let me throw a few examples of potential…

  • Five for Friday – June 11, 2021

    It’s a sort-of-sunny day in the Pacific northwest, and I have the day off from work (which probably means I’m cleaning the garage today. Here are some links to ponder from my recent browser history. Camille Fournier posted a wonderful (and incomplete) list of skills senior engineers need, beyond coding Lisi Hocke wrote a wonderful…

  • HWTSAM – Six Years Later

    We’re less than a week away from the sixth anniversary of How We Test Software at Microsoft (some chapters were completed nearly seven years ago). Recently I was considering a new position at Microsoft, and one of my interviewers (a dev architect and also an author) said that he had been reading my book. I…

  • See Me…Hear Me

    Although I really enjoy talking about testing, I’m (purposely) speaking a lot less these days. I have a day-job that I love, and I like hanging out in the rainy Pacific Northwest. As of now (and I think a plan change is a long shot), I’m travelling to exactly one conference in CY13 (StarWest in…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.