If you’ve been finding the 1:1 mapping between repos and notification settings in GitHub restrictive our new feature: Pull Request Notifications By Path will be a big help. Dispatch notifications now accept glob based settings that let you define rules that can cut across multiple repositories or within a small slice of one.
Tech
What I Learned Trying To Secure Congressional Campaigns
Compulsory reading for anyone responsible for security, especially the security of non-technical teams. A really helpful exploration of how to do something that is still helpful despite really tough constraints.
Alan Kay Did Not Invent Objects
Fundamental statement of fact underpinning rhetorical wars in the programming community not as fundamentally factual as commonly believed. News at 11.
On SQS
I can’t keep up with the thoughtleading on whether queues are good or bad. This one suggests good.
What Does it Mean to Be “Full Stack”?
I like this lens on full stack development as a kind of ever evolving definition kind of based in self-sufficiency. Given 87% of all content about full stack from front end thought leaders is that it’s bullshit and it doesn’t exist this is refreshing.
Is High Quality Software Worth the Cost?
Martin Fowler makes the case that building quality software is cheaper than than taking continual shortcuts but somehow sidesteps the entire definitional problem of what actually is high quality software vs fashionable gold plating. Interesting, but will settle no arguments.
Business & Management
7 Principles That Helped Us Bootstrap a 7-figure Business
A really interesting blow by blow history of a perennially overlooked Melbourne(ish) success story. Stu and John put in some very hard yards but it’s paid off very well for them.
Quick note: Friday wins and a case study in ritual design
Solid advice for what to do when your sprint showcase or retro or whatever you want to call it is feeling like a chore. You are what you reward so be strategic about it.
Product-led Companies - Why and How They Work
A few of the ins and outs of building “product led” companies, which seems to be largely the strategic use of freemium products to drive growth.
How to Size and Assess Teams From an Eng Lead at Stripe, Uber and Digg
Long but worthwhile post from Will Larson on structuring engineering teams. I don’t agree with every specific formulation in the post but if you’re yet to find your own heuristics for structuring teams I can’t think of a better framework to start with.
Being Glue
An old favourite of mine, a talk about the career hazards in performing the incredibly valuable but frequently grossly underrated work of keeping a team working well. Good advice that makes me sad for the kind of world where it is good advice.
Culture
How to Make the Perfect Milkshake for Throwing at Fascists
Normally I get quite annoyed when a recipe tells a long story before getting to the damned ingredients list, but I make an exception for this one.
Bullet - Share captioned video snippets of podcasts from any app
Big shout out to Ben & Aron at Bullet, we were in the same cohort of the Startmate program last year and they made #1 product of the day for their re-re-rerelease of their app. If you ever want to share little wisdom nuggets from podcasts definitely check it o ut.
Quentin Tarantino on how spaghetti westerns shaped modern cinema
One of my favourite directors of all time waxing rhapsodic about one of my other favourite directors. Makes a strong case for Sergio Leone as one of the ground-breakers of modern cinematic technique.
Model Metropolis
This gets pretty meta but it’s kind of about the influence Sim City has had on a generation of town planners, but then the influence a particular professor had on the design of Sim City and therefore on town planners.
Before Netscape: The forgotten Web browsers of the early 1990s
This post filled me with fond memories of riding my pushbike down to the local university to use Mosaic on the library computers to read about videogames and Star Trek and stuff.
Contractually Obligated Nautical Fact
Undersea cables - Huawei’s ace in the hole
Ultimately any serious internet trade war is going to come down to who paid for the boats to put the cables under the water between the countries.
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