John Peña johnpena

Notes from the Mystery Machine Bus

I've spent the past eight years (starting back in June 2004) writing elaborate rants about a bunch of vaguely related software engineering issues.

I was doing all that ranting because I've been genuinely perplexed by a set of "bizarre" world-views held dear by -- as far as I can tell -- about half of all programmers I encounter, whether online or in person.

Last week, after nearly a decade of hurling myself against this problem, I've finally figured it out. I know exactly what's been bothering me.

In today's essay I'm going to present you with a new conceptual framework for thinking about software engineering. This set of ideas I present will be completely obvious to you. You will probably slap yourself for not having thought of it yourself. Or you might slap the person next to you. In fact you probably have thought of it yourself, because it is so blindingly obvious.

Steve Yegge -- Aug 15, 2012 - Public

Return of the Mystery Machine Bus! In 3D!

The inputs are in! Everyone's had a chance to mull over my liberal/conservative distinction in the big world of programming styles and approaches to software engineering. Lots of great feedback.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to think about this conceptual model and share your thoughts.

Here are a few things that jumped out at me, reading the feedback.

Stevey's Google Platforms Rant

I was at Amazon for about six and a half years, and now I've been at Google for that long. One thing that struck me immediately about the two companies -- an impression that has been reinforced almost daily -- is that Amazon does everything wrong, and Google does everything right. Sure, it's a sweeping generalization, but a surprisingly accurate one. It's pretty crazy. There are probably a hundred or even two hundred different ways you can compare the two companies, and Google is superior in all but three of them, if I recall correctly. I actually did a spreadsheet at one point but Legal wouldn't let me show it to anyone, even though recruiting loved it.

I mean, just to give you a very brief taste: Amazon's recruiting process is fundamentally flawed by having teams hire for themselves, so their hiring bar is incredibly inconsistent across teams, despite various efforts they've made to level it out. And their operations are a mess; they don't real

	def yes_or_no(question):
	reply = str(raw_input(question+' (y/n): ')).lower().strip()
	if reply[0] == 'y':
	return True
	if reply[0] == 'n':
	return False
	else:
	return yes_or_no("Please enter y or n: ")

	package main

	import (
	"fmt"
	"time"
	)

	func main() {
	concurrency := 10
	bouncer := make(chan bool, concurrency)

	import sys
	import requests
	import json
	import random
	from http.server import HTTPServer, BaseHTTPRequestHandler

	class MessageHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
	def __init__(self):
	BaseHTTPRequestHandler.__init__()
	self.current_timestamp = random.randint(1000, 5000)

	# Stick this in ~/.gitconfig

	[alias]
	# Shortcuts:
	st = status -sb
	br = branch
	co = checkout
	sha = rev-parse HEAD

	# List all tracked files:

	class great_stuff(object):
	def __init__(self, a, b, c):
	"""
	__init__ is not passed the function to be decorated if arguments
	are passed to the decorator.
	"""
	self.a = a
	self.b = b
	self.c = c

	"""https://blog.svpino.com/2015/05/08/solution-to-problem-5-and-some-other-thoughts-about-this-type-of-questions"""
	from itertools import permutations, product


	def problem1():
	def forloop(numbers):
	s = 0
	for number in numbers:
	s += number
	return s

	# crap/a.py

	class A(object):
	pass

	print A.__subclasses__() # this will be an empty list, []

	# crap/b.py

	from a import A