Series
Consulting and Craft
The practice of building software, and the lessons that keep turning up. Direct essays on engineering practice, plus shorter pieces from the kitchen that turn out to be about software too.
Consulting and Craft · In Practice
The Value Is in Ideas, Not Code
LLMs have made code implementation almost trivial. The bottleneck has shifted from writing code to knowing what to ask for. Your library of patterns, concepts, and hard-won experience is now your competitive advantage.
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Consulting and Craft · Through the Kitchen
The Quiet Jar in the Fridge
My last sourdough starter died through a quiet chain of postponed feeds. I'm starting a new one today. Most of what I'm learning as I begin again, I wish I'd known a decade earlier about codebases.
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Consulting and Craft · Through the Kitchen
The Knife in My Hand
A sharp knife is safer than a dull one. Pick the right tool for the job, then put in the practice. Speed comes from practice, not pressure. A few focussed, well-maintained, well-practised tools will more predictably take you further than the latest beautiful shiny offering.
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Consulting and Craft · Through the Kitchen
The Salt in the Dish
There are four kinds of salt in my kitchen drawer and they are not interchangeable. This post is about salt. Most of it is actually about dependencies, and about the discipline of knowing what you're putting into the dish before you put it in.
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Consulting and Craft · In Practice
The Price of Everything
Pricing isn't a finance decision; it's a product decision. The journey from a gut-feel launch number to validated unit economics is one of the hardest things a small team has to do, and one of the most consequential.
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Consulting and Craft · Through the Kitchen
The Probe in the Meat
I own four kitchen thermometers, each for a different kind of cooking, and the differences between them are the differences between the kinds of decisions they help me make. Most of what I've learned about observability, I could have learned from a brisket, a vat of hot oil, a batch of caramel, and a steak.
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