Puzzled Frog

Building a tiny recursive descent parser in Java to think about invariants

Programs look like they run on instructions, but they do not. They run on shape.

Every nontrivial piece of software hides what one could call a geometric structure that guides what the program is allowed to do and what it can never do. This structure is not visible in the syntax, nor is it obvious from the sequence of operations....

Self-Similarity, Recursion, and the Growth of Computational Cost

Developers reach for recursion instinctively. It feels natural, almost effortless: describe the base case, handle the recursive case, let the call stack unwind. A function becomes a self-referential definition, and the resulting program reads like a mathematical specification.

Yet this cognitive comfort hides a sharp edge. The ease with which we write recursive code contrasts with the difficulty of predicting...

The Importance of Precise Language in Software Development

We speak far less precisely than we think we do. Each time we use a word, we’re pointing to a bundle of ideas that lives in our own mind: ideas shaped by memories, assumptions, and private mental models. The listener, however, interprets those same words through a completely different mental landscape. Even when two people think they’re referring to the...

The Power of Doing One Thing at a Time

I used to be an enthusiastic guy when it came to professional goals and engineering projects, and I mean that in a bad way. I always had at least five audacious projects cohabiting in my head. And that brought a combo of feelings that usually went more or less like this:

• Stress due to the constant pressure of multiple...

Mechanism vs. Policy

In The Art of Unix Programming, Eric Steven Raymond discusses the Unix approach of avoiding enforcing policies and preferring to define a mechanism while leaving the policy definition to the user.

This is an instigating perspective, so I would like to explore the difference between mechanism and policy a bit further.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a mechanism...

Humility and Conflict Management

We have come to equate saying “I disagree” with being angry. So, saying or hearing that makes people uncomfortable.

How do you foster workplace dynamics in which disagreeing is not seen as pointing fingers or being angry but as constructive forking of lines of thought?

There is no such thing as a conflict-free work environment. Such an environment would be...

Software Developers are Knowledge Workers

We usually see people from academia as knowledge workers. Why? What makes any kind of work “knowledge work”? One possible answer is: study as part of the job. This means that if studying is not only beneficial but is actually part of your work, then you are a knowledge worker.

Based on this definition, I would argue that people who...

Why Orthogonality Reduces Development Time

Back in the 1999 edition of The Pragmatic Programmer, David Thomas and Andrew Hunt said that orthogonality was a concept rarely taught directly. Instead, it was an implicit feature of other methods and techniques. This means that if you ended up building an orthogonal system, you would do so as an unconscious side effect of using a method that happens...

Management is a Moral Profession

Many factors drive senior individual contributors to pursue a management position, the most obvious ones being a bigger salary and more significant influence. However, one other aspect strikes me as crucial: the moral implications of the job.

As a manager, you often find yourself in the position of making decisions that will impact people’s lives—real people with real families and...