J as a Desktop Calculator

February 22, 2021

Talk Tuesday I'm speaking at Berlin Function Programming Group! Noon CST tomorrow, register here. It's my standard TLA+ talk, so there won't be any major...

"Naming Things" is a Poor Name for Naming Things

February 16, 2021

It's been a while! Let's just say the past couple of weeks have not been kind to me and leave it at that. So, newsletter. I got 40% through writing about...

No, "reasoning about code" is not a scam

February 1, 2021

Late Newsletter next week Alloy workshop. Still one slot left if people are interested! No, "reasoning about code" is not a scam Last week I read “Reasoning...

Adversarial Nondeterminism

January 29, 2021

Damn, has it been two weeks since the last "real" newsletter? I feel like my brain is out shape. Anyway, I thought of a fun metaphor to explain model...

New Essay: Are We Really Engineers?

January 18, 2021

Are We Really Engineers? It's finally ready! Part one of the Crossover Project covers what inspired me to do this all, what makes engineering "engineering",...

How I got into formal methods

January 11, 2021

Alloy Workshop There's a couple slots left for the February Alloy Workshop. Feb 8th, 10 AM - 6 PM CST. Learn how to find bugs in your designs without having...

Write Code That Delivers Value to Clients

January 1, 2021

Does a person help my team deliver software to stakeholders? If they stomp their feet and demand that we spend a week reducing the program’s memory footprint...

100th Issue End-of-Year Bonanza

December 28, 2020

It's the 100th Computer Things Newsletter! I'm celebrating with a book announcement and director's commentary on all of my 2020 essays. But first, a couple...

Cross-Branch Testing

December 21, 2020

This was inspired by a few conversations I had last week. There's a certain class of problems that are hard to test: The output isn't obviously inferrable...

The Most Important Video Game Ever Made

December 14, 2020

So first question: important how? If we're just talking "impact to the game industry" it'd probably be something like Super Mario Bros or Tetris or something...

Oracle Testing

December 7, 2020

This is another experiment in producing intermediate workhorse essays, combined with a bunch of theorycrafting. Most unit tests are "example test", showing...

Safety and Liveness Properties

November 30, 2020

Hi nerds, I'm back! I didn't think about tech at all last week so don't have a whole lot on my mind this week, but let's see what I can dredge up. Workshop,...

Computer Things: Vacation Phone-In Edition

November 23, 2020

Hi all! I'm taking my first "real" vacation since I went independent two years ago. Ostensibly the plan is to spend it all juggling, cooking, and not...

Knights, Puzzles, and Hypermodels

November 16, 2020

I, being a huge nerd, am a fan of logic puzzles. One of the most famous ones is "Knights and Knaves": you have a bunch of statements from people, where...

Why I Still Use Vim

November 11, 2020

The Stack Overflow blog recently published Modern IDEs are magic. Why are so many coders still using Vim and Emacs? Posts about Vim vs Emacs vs IDEs are...

No, your clean code won't save the planet

November 5, 2020

Need to channel my election anxiety into something productive, so here you go. One baffling trend I'm seeing recently is people trying to moralize virtuous...

Programs Writing Programs

November 2, 2020

New Essay Two workers are quadratically better than one. I shared a first draft of this a couple weeks back; this time it didn't change a whole lot aside...

TLA+ Helped Me Count to Six

October 26, 2020

The TLA+ Workshop is done! I'm taking November off from workshops do complete three writing goals: Feedback from the first draft of the Crossover Project is...

The Pendulum Swings Eternal

October 19, 2020

I shouldn't have had a newsletter this week because of the TLA+ workshop, but I forgot to say "no newsletter this week" last week so guess what, extra...

Edge Case Poisoning

October 12, 2020

TLA+ Workshop Last Call The TLA+ workshop is next week! Oct 20-22, register here, use the code COMPUTRONSTUFF for $500 off. Learn how a few hours of...

We have met the Excelnemy and he is us

October 6, 2020

Workshop The TLA+ workshop is in just two weeks! Oct 20-22, register here, use the code COMPUTRONSTUFF for $500 off. Still three slots left for the workshop!...

Mystery Knowledge

September 28, 2020

Mystery Knowledge In the misty past of 2019, when I was still giving conference talks, I always meditated for 5-10 minutes before starting. Arrive early, set...

Software Engineers Don't Have Disciplines

September 22, 2020

I know I said no newsletter this week, between the Alloy workshop and my panicked rush to finish The Crossover Project, but I found this old abandoned essay...

Updates on the Crossover Project

September 14, 2020

No Newsletter Next Week I'll be teaching the Alloy workshop. Speaking of workshops… TLA+ Workshop TLA+ Workshop for October 20-22, 10 AM - 6 PM CST. 24 hours...

Write Notes for Your Code

September 10, 2020

New Essay Decision Table Patterns: How to write better decision tables and fix common issues. If you've wanted to try formal methods but weren't sure where...

That Time I Almost Joined a Software Cult

September 8, 2020

Alloy Workshop There's just one slot left for the Alloy Workshop! Use the code YARLSNARTH for $1200 off. Are We Engineers Toxx clause is still in effect: if...

Formal Specification Languages

August 28, 2020

Alloy Workshop Slots for the September 21st Alloy workshop are still available! Learn how to model domains in a way that finds the bugs for you, rather than...

Please read the paper before you comment

August 24, 2020

Each day on twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it— maple cocaine (@maplecocaine) January 3, 2019 Yesterday the main character of...

What's the Deal with Message Passing, Anyway

August 21, 2020

I'm back from the moving! Things are still a bit chaotic here but hopefully normal newsletter/essays/office hours should resume next week. Alloy Workshop...

New Essay and a Very Peculiar Optimization

August 14, 2020

New Essay J Notation as a Tool of Thought. Many of you already read it as a newsletter piece, but this new version is considerably expanded and has a lot of...

New Workshop, Test Inference

August 11, 2020

Delayed newsletter next week I'm moving Monday, so newsletter should go out Tuesday. This is entirely unrelated to why the newsletter was delayed this week,...

How knowing math helps you write better software

August 3, 2020

Projects Update TLA+ workshop last week went really well! I'm super happy with the current state of the workshop and while I'll still be making a bunch of...

Syntax highlighting is a waste of an information channel

July 20, 2020

No newsletter next week Running the TLA+ workshop. No way I'm gonna have any brainpower after that. Syntax highlighting is a waste of an information channel...

Merchants on the Ivory Road

July 13, 2020

Before we get into the main bit I have a few announcements to cover: Announcements New essay I wrote a new essay! The Frink is Good, the Unit is Evil. Learn...

I have become ideas guy

July 6, 2020

Workshop There's still one slot available for the TLA+ workshop! July 27-29, remote, going to be super intense. Sign up here. Random Thoughts I wanted to...

Situated Software

July 3, 2020

New essay In what might be the shortest turnaround ever, I just uploaded weak and strong fairness. It's gone through some revisions since the draft I shared...

Why You Should Always Blindly Chase Industry Trends

June 29, 2020

Look I know you're here for the train wreck but there's logistical stuff we have to cover first. "Are we really engineers" video now available Here. tl;dr I...

New TLA+ Workshop, New PBT Essay

June 20, 2020

Thanks to everyone who came out for the "Are We Really Engineers" talk yesterday! I suspect they'll be putting the recording up here at some point, but if...

Monads and Transducers are Literally 100% The Same Thing

June 15, 2020

No Newsletter Next Week I promised one last week but the Alloy workshop took way too much out of me. Since I'm doing another workshop next week, I'm just...

Some Ranting About Examples

June 2, 2020

Delayed newsletter next week I'm doing the Alloy workshop on Monday and will have zero energy after that, so the newsletter will be out by Tuesday at the...

Defects are not the fault of programmers

May 27, 2020

Sorry this one is late! I've been having a rough time lately, which I think is pretty normal right now for everyone. But I'm doing a bit better now and hope...

Workshop Innovations and New Website Essay

May 18, 2020

Office hours What I'm thinking of doing is office hours every two weeks, alternating between an evening slot and a morning slot. So this week let's do office...

If Inheritance is so bad, why does everyone use it?

May 15, 2020

This essay says that inheritance is harmful and if possible you should "ban inheritance completely". You see these arguments a lot, as well as things like...

New Essay: In Praise of AutoHotKey

May 12, 2020

No office hours this week Still thinking through how to best do office hours. I think based on attendance it'd probably be more comfortable to do something...

Rage Against the God Machine

May 8, 2020

Content warning: mental illness, depression, abuse, PTSD, stuff like that. If you're sensitive to these topics you may want to skip this one. On Wednesday I...

How I Write Talks

May 4, 2020

New Workshop Given the interest in the previous Alloy workshop, I've opened up a second day on June 22nd. Same discount applies, [redacted] for 500 off. It's...

New Essay, Office Hours, and a short essay

April 27, 2020

Workshop Sold Out The Alloy workshop is now sold out. Dang, that was fast. If you're still interested in this, please add yourself to the waitlist. If enough...

This Newsletter is Too Popular

April 21, 2020

New Talk My Deconstruct talk, "What we can Learn from Software History", is now out! It covers why studying history so important and what it looks like to...

Making Illegal States Unrepresentable

April 17, 2020

I have opinions on this Okay so the saying is "make illegal states unrepresentable". The meaning is that we should structure programs in a way it such that a...

Announcing Alloydocs, updates on major projects

April 13, 2020

Alloydocs It's finally ready! Almost 13,000 words of Alloy reference, techniques, and pitfalls. There's still a lot of work to do when people inevitably...