The thinking behind the shipping

Essays.

Permanent, standalone pieces on the judgment behind shipping software. No feed, no cadence. Each one is written to still be worth your while years from now.

Essay № 001

The Job Is Knowing When.

Anyone can build the thing now. What you hire after year twenty is the other question: which decisions have to be right on day one, which can wait, and which should never be made at all.

Essay № 002

Never Rewrite (Except This Once).

"It would be faster to start over" is the most expensive sentence in software. Why the pitch is almost always wrong, and the one time in twenty years I made it myself.