A learning experience for everyone involved — I’ve had the unpleasant duty on more than one occasion of having to tell someone they were no longer employed at our company. This is a terrible thing for those who have to leave, who usually do not even get much warning. It can also be very tough on whoever…

I had to go to the other side of the world to learn it. Everyone else, read on. — A man runs into a bar and frantically motions toward the beer tap and says “Quick! Before it starts!” The bartender, confused, gives the man a beer, which he quickly downs. He again points urgently toward the tap and repeats, “Quick! Before it starts!”, and the bartender gives him another. …

The (probably) true story behind the infamous Field Service meme — I spent a lot of time in the late 70s and early 80s crammed into small computer rooms. It was an era when computers needed a room of their own, and if you wanted to use one, you needed to be in it as well. …

I’m starting the new year by saying “Hello, World!”, which is an activity I have engaged in many times before. Each of these greetings is joyful. This is the time-honored exercise practiced by anyone trying to learn something new — including of course writers of all those starting programs that…

Five Reasons to Avoid Being a Territorial Programmer — I have written computer programs for over forty years. Like many developers, my initial programming efforts were unpaid, single-person affairs. In my case, things that were written as a teen in the late 1970s and early 1980s in BASIC and assembler for primitive mainframes and early home PCs. In my…

It may be obnoxious in your social life, but it’s essential for your work life. I don’t know where the phrase “Don’t toot your own horn.” comes from, but it’s kind of weird. It’s supposed to be saying something about the virtues of being modest. But if you ask me…

How I Learned That If You Love Your Readers, You Have To Let Them Go This is about those times when you write something, and more people choose to stop following you than choose to begin following you. It feels bad. And it can really demotivate you to do more…

I’m not saying there was no computer security in the 1980s but, Wait... Yes. Yes, I am. — There is this part of your brain called your prefrontal cortex that apparently does not fully develop until you are in your 20’s. This area is responsible for things like planning, determining the consequences of actions, solving problems, and impulse control. …

Some easy-to-give, hard-to-follow work advice — Once upon a time, I had a job as a hardware systems engineer for a large computer company. …