Robert Roskam
Robert RoskamSoftware engineers, I got 4 books for you, but they're not the normal flavor.
1. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
2. Atomic Habits by James Clear
3. Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal
4. Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte
https://blog.robertroskam.com
Robert RoskamIs it just me or was black-friday-cyber-monday a bust?
I'm serious I bought a big purchase (~$800) on Cyber Monday thinking it was actually some deal, but it turns out it's the very same price today. And I suspect it was the same price before.
I'm not feeling duped. I just would have bought it much earlier and got the benefit sooner.
Robert RoskamIs there a hello world of 3D printing?
Robert RoskamI've never been to AWS re:Invent. Never wanted to go either.
Am I missing out or is it just a giant cash grab by a mega corp?
Robert RoskamIn the book the Unicorn Project, the main character Maxine is held up as a positive role model, when she's actually part of the problem.
Let me explain.
Maxine works late nights, volunteers for Thursday evening deployments, volunteers for weekend store training, then goes home and writes a 12-page report while her family plays with the puppies, and checks in her laptop while she's sick.
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Robert RoskamTech culture often celebrates engineers like Maxine. Theyโre brilliant people who work nights and weekends because they "love" it.
This isn't what good culture looks like. Sure, every once in a while this is necessary when it's a real emergency. But if "real emergencies" happen every weekend and evening week after week for months on end, it's not actual an emergency; it's just a poorly managed organization.
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Robert RoskamIn the book the Unicorn Project, the main character Maxine is held up as a positive role model, when she's actually part of the problem.
Let me explain.
Maxine works late nights, volunteers for Thursday evening deployments, volunteers for weekend store training, then goes home and writes a 12-page report while her family plays with the puppies, and checks in her laptop while she's sick.
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Robert RoskamVibe coders are learning. Writing code was never that hard.
For sure, coding starts hard, but it's a hard that gets easier with exercise, like any other exercise.
Figuring out what people need & solving that need. Now that's hard. Irreducibly hard. It never really gets that much easier.
Your favorite LLM, though, can't exercise anything. It doesn't even really know anything. At least not in the sense of the way we say that we know things. Does
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Robert RoskamAn LLM just goes in the direction you point it. It is as deep as you are in understanding something.
Sure, you can go faster in a particular direction with it. If you're going in the right direction, you'll get there faster. If you're going in the wrong direction, you'll also get there faster. That's valuable.
But knowing if it's the right or the wrong direction, that's on you.
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Robert RoskamVibe coders are learning. Writing code was never that hard.
For sure, coding starts hard, but it's a hard that gets easier with exercise, like any other exercise.
Figuring out what people need & solving that need. Now that's hard. Irreducibly hard. It never really gets that much easier.
Your favorite LLM, though, can't exercise anything. It doesn't even really know anything. At least not in the sense of the way we say that we know things. Does
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Robert RoskamParkinson's Law will at your roadmap alive, if you let it.
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
Setting time expectations for how long something ๐ฎ๐ช๐จ๐ฉ๐ต take tends to make it how long it ๐ด๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฅ take.
I bet you've experienced this:
- meetings that expand to fill the scheduled duration regardless of agenda or need
- features always somehow take the full sprint when given two weeks
- projects scoped to take place during Q2 mysteriously require the entire quarter
Robert RoskamI submit there are likely many major mental models that people actually useโ consciously or unconsciously for how they're doing the work:
- Academia - getting to the answer
- Artisan - making a high quality parts
- Assembly Line - making the whole sequentially
- Construction - making the whole in layers with different crews
- Restaurant - different stations to assemble something
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Robert RoskamAdditionally, there are several mental models for what they're making:
- Factory - a thing that makes other things
- Residential building - an thing for someone to use directly
- Roads and bridges - a thing for someone to use indirectly
- Supply chain - a thing to move other things
Having a sufficiently accurate mental model helps you (1) explain to yourself what's going on, (2) explain it to others, and (3) effectively target it for change.
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