The Esotech Lit Gap
I work with a lot of really esoteric technologies, like TLA+, Alloy, J, MiniZinc, and PRISM. Pretty much every non-mainstream technology has a "literature...
Take Back April Fools (also new post)
Hello everyone! So first of all, new post. It's about how I got into microscopy and a bunch of pictures I took that I like. It has nothing to do with tech at...
The Software Iron Triangle
The "iron triangle" of project management is "Cheap, fast, good: choose two". This works on the assumption that quality is a metric while time and money are...
I finally found a use for XML
The Problem When teaching things I like to break code up into a set of small changes, showing the differences between each change. So if I start with //...
That time Indiana almost made π 3.2
Happy Pi Day!1 To celebrate I want to get away from software for a bit and talk about something special. You may have heard the story that the Indiana...
The Parable of the Crow
Hey y'all! Still hard at work on the new learntla version. It's currently about a third of the length of original learntla, which is pretty impressive, given...
Software I'm Thankful For
Last week I read Software I'm Thankful For and it inspired me to do a similar piece. I use a lot of different exotic tools, too, so I think it's a good way...
A Short Treatise on Bugs
First a term: by "treatise", I'm not saying this newsletter is comprehensive, persuasive, or even correct. I'm using it to mean a very specific type of...
Website Haitus, Info on the Learntla Rewrite
Website Haitus Fortunately not depression this time, just a responsibility thing. From the announcement: I’m not letting myself work on software content for...
Why You Should Read "Data and Reality"
Once more: we are not modeling reality, but the way information about reality is processed, by people. — Bill Kent I've got this working theory that you can...
Regexes are Cool and Good
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I'll use regular expressions.” Then they solve their problem, hooray! Regexes are great! I use...
Software Artifacts and Programming vs Engineering
Hiya everyone! Workshop is all done and I'm alive again. For those of you just joining us, I teach formal methods workshops to companies. Working on a piece...
Please stop falling for conspiracy theories
I'm a pretty gullible person. When I was a kid, my sister told me that there was a monster inside the toilet. For years after I'd flush and then run out of...
The Outside View
In Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People, Maciej Pinboard nee Cegłowski talks about analyzing AI risk with the perspective of the "outside...
2nd Annual End-of-Year Essay Retrospective
Last year I rolled up the newsletter into an ebook and gave my thoughts on every published blogpost. I haven't gotten around to making the 2021 Computer...
Sup Nerds, We Doin' a Mailbag
First some good personal news: I did a hiatus over the summer due to severe depression issues. Well, I finally got into an intensive outpatient program,...
Uncomfortable Truths in Software Engineering
New Post: ADTs in TLA+ Using Abstract Data Types in TLA+. It's an adaptation of part of my TLAConf talk. It's also a lot more advanced than most of the...
A better explanation of the monty hall problem
I know I said no newsletter this week but this just hit me and it's small enough to write up so I'm fitting it in. The Monty Hall problem is a famous...
New Post: Alloy 6: It's About Time
Read it here! https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/alloy6/ Features my first attempts at using vector graphic diagrams to explain things better, like this:...
Principles of Software Evangelism
My job these days is researching exotic software technologies and selling them to companies, which means I'm a software evangelist. And because I literally...