I recently stumbled across: Snippets on Software. It’s a collection of mini-notes on software with links to more if you are interested in more detail. Some snippets are wonderful, some clearly aren’t exclusive to software and some I would argue are just plain wrong. Nonetheless, it’s a great list.
It’s too long to read from end-to-end in one sitting but it’s well worth skimming. Below a few snippets that I enjoyed to whet your appetite:
“there is only one consensus protocol, and that’s Paxos” – all other approaches are just broken versions of Paxos. – Mike Burrows
Conway’s Law: Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.
“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” — Albert Einstein
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -Robert A. Heinlein
“You can try to control people, or you can try to have a system that represents reality. I find that knowing what’s really happening is more important than trying to control people.” — Larry Page
Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you’re as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it? —Brian Kernighan
–jrh
James Hamilton, Amazon Web Services
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