The change-harvester uses these five words to describe the properties of successful change: human, local, oriented, taken, and iterative. Let’s talk about “local”. See the previous post “Human Change” here These muses turn in to blogs + podcasts, and you can subscribe to them at geepawhill.org .) When we say we want our changes to […]
Local Change – What and Why Read More »
Today, let’s talk about the change-harvesters use of the concept-cluster we describe with the adjective "human". We advocate that both the what and the how are best centered around the humans in our systems. The change-harvester looks at changes — in code, in individuals, in teams, in process & flows, in organizations — and sees
Human Change – What and Why Read More »
I want to talk about value today, and especially want to consider an idea I call multivalence, which seems quite central to putting the change-harvesting ideas to work. I recently chanced across a timeline convo that by asked what we should call things it would be good to achieve that weren’t things that were directly
Multivalence for Change Harvesters Read More »
The reason it’s so important for you to see 100 lines of code on your screen is that you have arranged the code so that 100 lines seems like a sane quantity. What you’re doing is working against your own capability. The reason it’s so important that no one interrupts you for six-hour blocks is
Lining It Up That Way (Rant) Read More »
The change-harvester’s take on “value” is quite different from the software trade’s “standard” view. To get at that difference will take us a little time. Three differences stand out for me just now, and they have to do with 1) definition, 2) distribution schedule, and 3) temporal stability. I want to take a look at
The Change-Harvester’s Value Read More »
I distinguish quite strongly between “readability” and what I call “scannability”. I think that our trade’s pedagogues, even our very good ones, conflate the two, and in so doing inaccurately describe programming and ineffectively prescribe remedies. Maybe the way to approach the idea is through your experience of seeing. Humans — most vertebrates, in fact
Readability And Scannability Read More »
Here’s a thing that happens: "We tried your advice by not trying your advice except partly where we did what we want but gave it your labels and it didn’t work and therefore you are wrong." Now, if you’ve given that advice for many years, and followed it in your own endeavors, and you, your
My Direction Forward Read More »
We’ve talked about frames adding up to worldviews adding up to cultures, but it all feels pretty vague in its possible importance. We need some informal sense of how this works in practice. In the immortal words of Brian Marick, "an example would be handy right about now." Continuous Integration (CI) is the practice of
Frames in the Software Trade: An Example Read More »
I am in a mood of 1) wanting to geek out a little, and 2) wanting to concretize some key ideas from change-harvesting for my fellow geeks. To do that, I need to give you a sketch of the kontentment project, a desktop app I wrote and use in making videos. The source for kontentment
The Kontentment Project Read More »
The “How I Work (Test-Driving Mix)” drew some questions and comment. How I Work (Test-Driving Mix) Here’s one: a respondent says, “If I write a lot of small tests and I change how a feature works, I have to change or throw out all those microtests, which is a lot of work.” (The respondent proposed
The Cost of Changing Microtests Read More »
