Time carries me relentlessly I caught some droplets off its vast stream Held them in my agings hands and made ink. I refuse to let it go. We shall remember. 1. Bonding Your mother can see into mysteries invisible to…
Breadth
In the spring of 2015, my manager in London told me he was impressed with my technical breadth. I joined his team after a hackamonth working on a code editor with Kent Beck, went on to work on some …
Depth
In this piece I discuss the practice of going deep into a system through a few examples. I believe I do this more often and more thoroughly than the average engineer, giving me an edge when tackling problems and increasing …
Snow
If I grow old enough to forget Or sad enough to despair Or mad enough to lose touch Be a good friend and remind me Of that winter time when my kids were young Help me recall the quiet white…
1wloc
Joining Facebook in May of 2011 was quite a shock for me. I had come from 6 years at Microsoft, at a time a slow behemoth so big that it could probably ship software faster if it had less engineers. …
First Letter to Ben
Everyone will remember this as a dark time But not me History books will talk about viruses, murders, fires, lies But not love, naturally scholars can’t comprehend this mystery What I remember most vividly from this year Is a grey…
Second Letter to Ian
I start with an apology: I’m sorry I didn’t write earlier I took a while because I was afraid that my words wouldn’t be good enough to capture these miracles I’ve seen. That is obvious now; they never will. (Some…
First Letter to Ian
On the night you came into this world Your mother and I listened together Hand in hand To all our love songs The water broke as the second one played And we kept on listening I felt infinite love for…