BEC Systems

Video is now an important way to communicate.

“A picture is worth a thousand words.”

For starters, consider Michael Lynch’s “Underused Techniques for Effective Emails”.

I have been using Claude Code to help with the following tasks on this blog: proofread (including detecting passive voice) add tags add an emoji to the title These are not rocket science, but they also take time and are something AI does pretty well.

Effective communication requires that those receiving information from us can easily process it.

I was thinking about computing history this morning, and I wonder how many young people even know that bottom posting in email is even a thing?

This marks the 201st post I’ve sent – 2/3’s of the way through the 300 bad posts.

We recently discussed integration, not isolation from a technical perspective.

In a recent discussion, the comment was made that containers are not always a good fit for edge/embedded devices, as they are designed for isolation (which is useful at times for cloud workloads), but with embedded, we want tight integration.

This can mean many things: More units sold More customers served More people doing the work More features More innovation More models produced More model options More quality We could go on, but basically we mean more of something over time.

If something is corrected, it needs to be fed back and incorporated, so you don’t keep redoing the same stuff over and over and eventually bury yourself in technical debt.

We’ve recently explored the idea that composing simple things is the way to scale.

Music is an interesting thing – a beautiful arrangement is composed of very simple constructs – a handful of simple notes on a relatively simple scale.

When programming, we learn that simple interfaces and simple data structures are good, because they are flexible.

Goodhart’s law states: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”.

This is an interesting read: GUIs are Antisocial This hits on an important point… GUI tools don’t scale, because they are not social.

For the past three decades, we have been told that graphical user interfaces (GUIs) will revolutionize computer use and even programming.

A lot of focus these days is on “good AI prompts.”

✔️ Should be “How does this work?”

✔️ Instead of presenting in a meeting, record a screencast and share it. ✔️ Publish your work often. ✔️ Utilize notifications in workflow tools. ✔️ Utilize a team chat tool such as Signal, Slack, Discourse chat, Discord, etc..

✔️ Low friction: tooling and workflows that allow anyone to make changes easily.

Today, we mostly think of iterating quickly on software, but it is becoming increasingly possible to also do this with hardware.

There is no way around this – even if you are a Company of One.

Some examples: ▶ When designing a PCB, put down the smallest packages you are comfortable working with.

Most modern languages (Node.js, Python, Rust, Go, Zig, Elm, etc.) have their own package manager.

Some examples: Think about and write tests before implementing a new software feature.

One thing I’ve noticed is when I release more frequently, I tend to automate.

Each phase is produced by someone or something.

While many great ideas and algorithms germinate in deep work and solo thinking, bringing a modern product (especially one containing software) to life require many iterations with feedback and learning.

To get really valuable feedback, we need users.

I’ve found it useful to define an iteration as a formal release (software that is packaged and users use, a PCB that you build, a prototype, a web app that you deploy, etc.).

“The way you get programmer productivity is not by increasing the lines of code per programmer per day.

Do you need a quick way to track some data?

A wise person once said: “Code is a liability, not an asset.

Apparently, this is an old Russian proverb that Ronald Reagan popularized.

Silos occur when a person or group of people operate in isolation from the rest of the organization.

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.

AI is really good at summarizing existing information – Perplexity Pro mostly has replaced Google/Duckduckgo, etc., and is worth every penny.

Reflection is another important aspect of the experience capture process.

In part 1, we discussed the importance of getting information into permanent mediums.

After yesterday’s post, I was asked: “What’s your process to capture experience?”

To leverage experience, we need to capture it.

Innovation is fueled by vision.

🧠 Experience: Guardrails for our journey, temperament for our actions. 🔭 Vision: The view of where we are going, the source of energy and enthusiasm for our enterprise.

There are two ways we can approach life: Take responsibility and try to solve some of our own problems.

In debates about technology, people bring up points, such as an Arch Linux update occasionally breaking and not booting; thus, Arch Linux is bad.

It is very true, we need great people in our organizations.

In the realm of product development, there are two powerful forces – experience and vision.

“past performance is not indicative of future results” The above phrase is a disclaimer we often see associated with investments.

Michael Feathers defines legacy code as code without tests.