Ten years ago, I wrote about Dan McKinley’s classic blog post Choose Boring Technology and its resonance with my own development philosophy. My conclusion then was simple: when spinning up a new project, I consider whether I’m using it as an excus...
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book, Abundance, makes a compelling case that American government has systematically eroded its own capacity to build things. Through decades of well-intentioned regulations, environmental reviews, and bureaucratic ...
Twenty years ago, I was working on Visual Studio at Microsoft when I had an encounter that still sticks with me today. I was manning a booth at a trade show, demonstrating new IDE features in Visual Studio 2005, when a developer approached me with...
I’ve been using agentic coding tools like Claude Code for a few months now, and I keep thinking about how to explain what this feels like to other developers. It’s not the stochastic parrot that critics dismiss it as, but it’s also not the Skynet ...
Software engineers have a unique opportunity: we can build things that millions of people use daily. This isn’t about ego or chasing the next big tech trend. It’s about recognizing our potential impact and using it wisely. Think about other skill...
