Engineering on 👨🏻‍💻 ∉ ℚ

Things I've Changed My Mind About

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Strong opinions, held for years, quietly abandoned. This is a list of things I used to believe and don’t anymore.

Compiled languages are safer than interpreted ones

I came up writing Java, and Java taught me that correctness was the compiler’s job. If it built, it was probably right; if it didn’t, the compiler told me where I’d gone wrong. That felt like safety. It took me years to notice it was mostly a crutch, as I learned to lean on the toolchain when I didn’t know the language well enough to reason in the language itself.

A Case for an Early Rewrite

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve started listening to Maintainable, and one of Robby’s standard questions is whether you’re on Team Refactor or Team Rewrite.

I’m on Team Refactor. The best way to achieve a rewrite is through a series of incremental refactors.

So it’s a little awkward to admit that the best refactor I ever shipped started as a rewrite. The two aren’t opposites. Done right, the rewrite is the thing that buys you the right to refactor. And a looming deadline is the best excuse you’ll ever get to start early.