About Me

You are reading the mostly coherent ramblings of a writer and software nerd based in San Francisco of the California Republic.

I started blogging as a way to sort out my learning on the job in software testing and the academic academic work I was doing for my Masters in Software Engineering.  It has settled into a blog which echoes my journey through a tech career and my obsession with writing.  You can read more about my blogging habits here.

The posts you will find here reflect my own opinions and aspects of my professional credo:

• Writing will always be the thing I do first and best
• At the crossroads of collaboration and craft stands an open well of deep creativity.  Great software emerges from those who gulp from and bathe themselves in the water of this well
• Software thrives with transparency and reciprocity between its makers, its users and its surrounding community
• Workplace safety is non-negotiable and includes emotional safety in the milieu of conferences, email lists, twitter and meet-ups.  If someone (a boss, peer, industry expert) says or does something that compromises my safety, I have the right to walk out whether it’s a conference presentation, workplace brown bag or one-on-one meeting
• An open web, open information, open data and open source software are all critical for social justice on a global scale
• Humans and their expressions are too complex to ever be completely definable by technology or labels.
• Software is better when it is made by a team that functions not as a well-oiled machine but as a team of humans who respect each other and know how to collaborate
• Focusing on the values in the Agile Manifesto means that software is built with heart and balance no matter what the process is called.
• If safety and humility are a primary focus, confidence and risk-taking flow.

And now for a standard disclaimer:

“The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent my employer’s positions, strategies or opinions.”