forgive my indulgence but 2020's been a big year for @shmuplations, so here's a look back at everything that went up over the last twelve months—there's a lot of stuff I'm sure you all read & other things you'd be forgiven for missing, so let's recap (thread)
https://t.co/orlgPTDsKK
https://t.co/QnQl8KI9IX
More from Software
🚨 🦮 Seven ways to test for accessibility using only what is already in browser developer tools of Chromium browsers https://t.co/C7kdbigHGE
@MSEdgeDev @EdgeDevTools @ChromiumDev
#tools #accessibility #browsers
Also, a thread: 👇🏼
Issues pane, powered by @webhintio, listing accessibility issues with explanations why these are problems, links to more info and direct links to the tools where to fix the problem. https://t.co/4K5RynHhbg
The inspect element overlay showing accessibility relevant information of the element, including contrast information, ARIA name, role and if it can be focused via keyboard.
Colour picker with contrast information offering colours that are AA/AAA compliant. You can also see compliant colours indicated by a line on the colour patch.
Note: the current algorithm fails to take font weight into consideration, that's why there will be a new one.
Vision deficit ("colour blindness") emulation. You can see what your product looks like for different visitors.
https://t.co/bxj1vySCAb
@MSEdgeDev @EdgeDevTools @ChromiumDev
#tools #accessibility #browsers
Also, a thread: 👇🏼
Issues pane, powered by @webhintio, listing accessibility issues with explanations why these are problems, links to more info and direct links to the tools where to fix the problem. https://t.co/4K5RynHhbg
The inspect element overlay showing accessibility relevant information of the element, including contrast information, ARIA name, role and if it can be focused via keyboard.
Colour picker with contrast information offering colours that are AA/AAA compliant. You can also see compliant colours indicated by a line on the colour patch.
Note: the current algorithm fails to take font weight into consideration, that's why there will be a new one.
Vision deficit ("colour blindness") emulation. You can see what your product looks like for different visitors.
https://t.co/bxj1vySCAb
Software architecture is in crisis, and the way to fix it is a hefty dose of anarchy.
Some lay the blame for this on @boicy with the whole microservices thing.
(Admittedly, @nicolefv, @jezhumble and @realgenekim didn’t help when they statistically proved that he might have been onto something with all that de-coupling and team-alignment…)
However I don’t blame him at all.
I think he saved us; bringing us back to the path of value-delivery and independent services, but now with added independent teams.
But one thing is clear. Microservices need more architecture, not less (as do other forms of #Accelerate-style software organisation).
(See https://t.co/B2hWmXhIqe if you need convincing)
I mean, all those pesky slices we need to carve up our monoliths (or were they big balls of mud?) That’s a significant amount of work right there…
Some lay the blame for this on @boicy with the whole microservices thing.
(Admittedly, @nicolefv, @jezhumble and @realgenekim didn’t help when they statistically proved that he might have been onto something with all that de-coupling and team-alignment…)
However I don’t blame him at all.
I think he saved us; bringing us back to the path of value-delivery and independent services, but now with added independent teams.
But one thing is clear. Microservices need more architecture, not less (as do other forms of #Accelerate-style software organisation).
(See https://t.co/B2hWmXhIqe if you need convincing)
I mean, all those pesky slices we need to carve up our monoliths (or were they big balls of mud?) That’s a significant amount of work right there…
Developer productivity, y'all. It is a three TRILLION dollar opportunity, per the stripe report.
Eng managers and directors, we have got to stop asking for "more headcount" and start treating this like the systems problem that it is. https://t.co/XJ0CkFdgiO
If you are getting barely more than 50% productivity out of your very expensive engineers, I can pretty much guarantee you cannot hire your way out of this resourcing issue. 😐
(the stripe report is here:
Say you've got a strategic initiative that 3 engineers to build and support it. Well, they're going to be swimming in the same muddy pipeline as everyone else at ~50%, so you're actually gotta source, hire and train 6, er make that 7 (gonna need another manager too now)...
...which actually understates the problem, because each person you add also adds friction and overhead to the system. Communication, coordination all get harder and processes get more complex and elaborate, etc.
So we could hire 7 people, or we could patch up our sociotechnical system to lose say only 25% productivity to tech debt, instead of 42%? 🤔
By my calculations, that would reclaim 3 engineers worth of capacity given a team of just 17-18 people.
Eng managers and directors, we have got to stop asking for "more headcount" and start treating this like the systems problem that it is. https://t.co/XJ0CkFdgiO
When people often have to spend weeks just to get a local development environment up, there is a lot to improve. \U0001f641
— Daniel Schildt (@autiomaa) December 20, 2020
If you are getting barely more than 50% productivity out of your very expensive engineers, I can pretty much guarantee you cannot hire your way out of this resourcing issue. 😐
(the stripe report is here:
Say you've got a strategic initiative that 3 engineers to build and support it. Well, they're going to be swimming in the same muddy pipeline as everyone else at ~50%, so you're actually gotta source, hire and train 6, er make that 7 (gonna need another manager too now)...
...which actually understates the problem, because each person you add also adds friction and overhead to the system. Communication, coordination all get harder and processes get more complex and elaborate, etc.
So we could hire 7 people, or we could patch up our sociotechnical system to lose say only 25% productivity to tech debt, instead of 42%? 🤔
By my calculations, that would reclaim 3 engineers worth of capacity given a team of just 17-18 people.
The Great Software Stagnation is real, but we have to understand it to fight it. The CAUSE of the TGSS is not "teh interwebs". The cause is the "direct manipulation" paradigm : the "worst idea in computer science" \1
Progress in CS comes from discovering ever more abstract and expressive languages to tell the computer to do something. But replacing "tell the computer to do something in language" with "do it yourself using these gestures" halts that progress. \2
Stagnation started in the 1970s after the first GUIs were invented. Every genre of software that gives users a "friendly" GUI interface, effectively freezes progress at that level of abstraction / expressivity. Because we can never abandon old direct manipulation metaphors \3
The 1990s were simply the point when most people in the world finally got access to a personal computer with a GUI. So that's where we see most of the ideas frozen. \4
It's no surprise that the improvements @jonathoda cites, that are still taking place are improvements in textual representation : \5
The Great Software\xa0Stagnation https://t.co/A6peSPERaU
— Jonathan Edwards (@jonathoda) January 1, 2021
Progress in CS comes from discovering ever more abstract and expressive languages to tell the computer to do something. But replacing "tell the computer to do something in language" with "do it yourself using these gestures" halts that progress. \2
Stagnation started in the 1970s after the first GUIs were invented. Every genre of software that gives users a "friendly" GUI interface, effectively freezes progress at that level of abstraction / expressivity. Because we can never abandon old direct manipulation metaphors \3
The 1990s were simply the point when most people in the world finally got access to a personal computer with a GUI. So that's where we see most of the ideas frozen. \4
It's no surprise that the improvements @jonathoda cites, that are still taking place are improvements in textual representation : \5
