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After six years in the field, Chris has shared his strong opinions on software development practices, languages, and methodologies. I like his attitude. Willingness to continuously put one’s personal views under scrutiny, eventually adapting or even changing them as needed, is not a common trait. Not in our field. While I generally agree with most of his opinions, I feel the urge to comment on a few of them. Typed languages are better when you’re working on a team of people with various experience levels...

As a non-native English reader, I had to look up the true meaning of “Unbundling” as a neologism. According to Wikipedia Unbundling is a neologism to describe how the ubiquity of mobile devices, Internet connectivity, consumer web technologies, social media and information access in the 21st century is affecting older institutions (education, broadcasting, newspapers, games, shopping, etc.) by “break[ing] up the packages they once offered (possibly even for free), providing particular parts of them at a scale and cost unmatchable by the old order....

I am presenting at two different events in February next month. Given the current COVID situation, that is entirely unexpected. In 2020 I only gave four talks, three of which were virtual. I am not holding my breath for 2021. Conferences are going virtual all year-long. Next year too, most likely. There are some clear advantages in going virtual, but the final result is a net negative. Any conference junkie will tell you that she/he attends for the people first, and only then for the sessions themselves....

We’ve seen other articles pointing the finger at unnecessarily bloated websites. Terence Eden’s On the unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML deserves mention, I think, for two reasons. First, the delivery is incredibly effective. Second, it is effective because of the storytelling. By enveloping the message into an original short, touching story, he achieves two goals. First, he captures the reader’s attention; second, he makes the experience memorable. Please, go and read it; I’ll wait here....

Bless the Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine. With it, we can go back in time and read The short, tormented life of computer genius Phil Katz, an unusually detailed and accurate article published in the April 14, 2000 issue of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. When he was found dead April 14, Phil Katz was slumped against a nightstand in a south side hotel, cradling an empty bottle of peppermint schnapps....

I finished reading Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin, an excellent book on the dramatic adventures of the HMS Erebus with her sister ship, the HMS Terror, first in James Clark Ross’s Antarctic expedition of 1839-43, and then during Franklin’s ill-fated Arctic expedition in search of the Northwest Passage. I knew Michael Palin as a member of the Monty Python comedy group. As it turns out, since 1980, he has also made many travel documentaries and books....

Here are five books I read in 2020 that I would recommend. I read several fine books last year, so please check out my reading history if you are unsatisfied with this selection. Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. I love Patrick Leigh Fermor. Over the years, I read almost everything he wrote. He has been described as “a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene,” and for a good reason....

Today I was happily migrating some C# projects to Net 5 when I stumbled upon something unexpected. My focus was on a library (a NetStandard2.0 REST API client, an SDK) and its associated test suite. The test project was a NetCore 3.1 application. As you can imagine, being a REST API client, the library does a lot of talking with a remote Web Service. It does that by leveraging the almightly System....

So last week I got an email from my friend Michael Kennedy. Michael runs the TalkPython Training website, arguably the best place where you can learn Python today. He also hosts two popular Python podcasts: TalkPython and PythonBytes, the latter co-hosted with Brian Okken. He is super active in the Python space, so much that he received the Python Software Foundation Fellow Membership back in 2018. I first met Michael back in 2014, I think, at MongoDB Headquarters in New York, where we were both invited as part of the MongoDB Masters program....

I went on a motorcycle trip. A fellow TOMCC1 member was planning a solo trip to Campo Imperatore (“Emperor’s Fields”), the well known alpine meadow in the Apennine ridge. He called me as he was looking for some advice, and well, I ended up joining him. What sparked my interest was the destination, of course, because Campo Imperatore is a superb place to visit, especially on a motorcycle, but also Antonio’s peculiar take on the journey....