“Ideas are like seeds; they have value to the extent that they are sown, tended to and pruned. A seed away from soil is worthless and gives no fruit.” [2024-11-20]“Building software is an act of design and no one in their right mind criticises a designer for his decisions.” …
PythonGoogle for Education: Python: https://developers.google.com/edu/python/RR for Data Science: https://r4ds.had.co.nz/Statistics and Data AnalysisIntroduction to Statistics and Data Analysis by Prof. Steve Brunton: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMrJAkhIeNNT14qn1c5qdL29A1UaHamjxStatQuest with Josh Starmer: https://www.youtube.com/user/joshstarmerMachine LearningAn Introduction to Statistical Learning: https://www.statlearning.com/The Elements of Statistical Learning: http://www.stat.ucla.edu/~ywu/research/documents/ESLII.pdfMachine Learning Crash Course …
There is nothing natural about design. It has to be learned. Instead, we tend to be impulsive, wired to act. Unfortunately, this tendency shows up in the quality of work. For software practitioners, this couldn't be a greater weakness. Why? Because every line of code is a promise: a promise …
Apple is famous for having a design studio that operates independently of the rest of the Apple company.2 At Apple, product design is everything. Apple does not care if it adheres to Agile or to any particular philosophy except for its own, which has proven to be successful. This …
Software used to shipped. Literally. You had to get a physical disk (floppy or optical) to get access to a company's software. Then the Internet happened. While the Internet lent itself to being a software platform, it took a while for the technology to develop that could support this. This …
This is continuation of thoughts I began some time back.Why would anyone need strategy? Progress.Why not just implement a plan to achieve progress? Uncertainty.What are the sources of uncertainty?Change in the environment. The environmen is never static but we don't always know how the change …
There are only two parts to any system: *components* and *interactions*. It is customary to think that the *aim* of the system is an essential part of the system. This is incorrect. The aim is always an emergent property either as the *design aim* or *resulting aim*. The real challenge …
This is a raw idea and is likely to be subject to multiple rounds of revision. When talking about systems, the term dynamics refers to how systems respond to perturbations. As system analysts, we are interested in two types of responses: the transient response and the steady state. A …
Most of us familiar with the idea of value chains. But value chains exist in value forests, aggregations of networks of value chains so vast and complex but so intricately intertwined.
One day I will teach. That has been my dream for most of my life ever since I was asked by my maths teacher to give the class an introduction to calculus in high school. I was lucky because I grew up in a house that revered books. Books were …
TDD is not design.That's it.While TDD does produce robust code, it amounts to building with a scaffold. The only problem is that the scaffold ends up being the life support for the application.While the test suite then serves as an aid to prevent regression of the code, …
Now that large language models (LLMs) have become part and parcel of how we conduct text authoring, there is a danger that this will result in a loss of linguistical diversity in style as more and more people lean on LLMs to expand on their ideas. I'll readily admit that …
"A bad definition is worse than useless––it is misleading and the cause of endless confusion."The standard definition of a vector is: "a way to describe a quantity that has both magnitude and direction". Even ChatGPT4 states that: "A vector is a mathematical entity that possesses both …
I have a growing realisation of a noxious temptation to want to know more than I need at any one moment. Recently, I've found myself veering towards exotic mathematical ideas I was exposed to as part of my engineering education. For example, I was recently going through Maxwell's equations that …
I've come across the word 'strategy' quite a bit over the last few weeks and it just got me thinking: what does it mean? How is strategy different from other conventional thinking?I tend to think of strategy in the context of chess. Strategy is often pitted against tactics. …
If you have not watched this inimitable talk on writing then you must see it here and another version here.The quality of writing is in the eye of the reader. There is no such things as good writing objectively.Ensure that there is a consistency in the …
“To allow any user to easily complete domain tasks in such a way as to be indistinguishable from a domain expert while enforcing domain standards.”
Inasmuch as the Internet has become a treasure trove of information, there is one form of information that abhors its radical transparency: curated content. The best it offers in its place is crowd-curated content or social knowledge such as on StackOverflow and its myriad sibling sites. Even with social …
The value of data science is two-fold:insights through the interpretation of statistical models, orinsights through prediction from statistical models.As with any value, the true measure is time-to-value: how long does it take to get insights? We would much rather get value sooner rather than later. However, we …
Suppose you read a announcement that the government would like to take over the operation of the largest supermarkets with a view of ensuring quality and affordable prices. "In the wake of the current economic woes," it read, "we believe that the public will be assured of higher quality and …
I think the notion that human populations exist in generations is fallacious because it suffers from a subjective bias. Any individual who makes a claim contingent on the idea of a generation automatically thinks in terms of the distinction between his age group, his parents' age group and his offspring's …
According to Deming, management is not playing games; it is all about prediction. A manager must be able to predict with a fair degree of certainty the likelihood of certain outcomes. How can this ever be achieved? It stands to reason that the first principle of prediction is knowledge of …