Allen Holub
@allenholub.bsky.social
Author, international speaker, consultant, software architect, kitchen-sink wrangler.
Reposted by Allen Holub
![Comic. Panels up to the 10-year point are grayed out. New panels since the Ten Years comic, which chronicles the first ten years of PERSON 1's journey with cancer: (1) [two people in bed] PERSON 1 (woman): One more chapter? PERSON 2 (man): Don’t we both have to get up early? PERSON 1: Nnnnnggggh PERSON 2: Sure, good point. (2) [many people wearing masks, walking while looking at graphs on their phones] (3) [birds landing on people] PERSON 2 in beanie and scarf: Hah! They like *my* seeds best. PERSON 1 in scarf holding phone with a bird sitting on it: Wait, how do I take a picture of this one? (4) [two people rowing boats with tree landscape] (5) [Person 1 carries overflowing stack of things to Person 2 in bed] PERSON 1: I brought you honey lemon tea, more pillows, a cinnamon roll, Tylenol, another blanket, a– PERSON 2: It was just Appendicitis, I’m really– PERSON 1: *It is my turn to take care of you and I am going to do it right!* (6) [Two people in car] (7) [still in car) PERSON 1: Oh my god. PERSON 2: Oh my god. (8) [car driving] PERSON 1: Pull over! PERSON 2: I am! (9) [both people get out of car] (10) [Large colored panel of aurora borealis over water with both people looking on] (11) [Person 1 sits against tree while Person 2 lies on the ground] PERSON 1: Fifteen years. No sign of the cancer. (12) I *am* having some weird symptoms. Joint pain. Fatigue. I think I’m losing my close-up vision. PERSON 2: Yeah. Me too. (13) PERSON 2: I think we’re getting old. (14) PERSON 1: I guess that’s okay. PERSON 2: It’s all I wanted.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreihwhjblp5lyiwp63ouar7ocfea7evmckytoeo7rkfuoo4gw5rnrra@jpeg)
November 26, 2025 at 10:32 PM
We all work under constraints like time or budget, even when working incrementally. You do not solve that problem with a plan, however, particularly an inflexible one. (You do need a product strategy, but that's a higher-level thing.
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November 26, 2025 at 6:24 PM
We all work under constraints like time or budget, even when working incrementally. You do not solve that problem with a plan, however, particularly an inflexible one. (You do need a product strategy, but that's a higher-level thing.
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To me, the whole idea of managing scope is antiquated and not particularly useful. It assumes a fixed up-front plan from which you can deviate. It assumes a schedule based on that up-front plan. However, scope defined upfront does not work, and it never has.
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November 25, 2025 at 11:52 PM
To me, the whole idea of managing scope is antiquated and not particularly useful. It assumes a fixed up-front plan from which you can deviate. It assumes a schedule based on that up-front plan. However, scope defined upfront does not work, and it never has.
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I often see a website for a company that ought to know better using URLs that look like phishing attempts. Microsoft, for example, sometimes shuttles you to "microsoftonlione.com" (with a side trip to something called live.com) to log in.
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November 25, 2025 at 4:50 PM
I often see a website for a company that ought to know better using URLs that look like phishing attempts. Microsoft, for example, sometimes shuttles you to "microsoftonlione.com" (with a side trip to something called live.com) to log in.
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Reposted by Allen Holub
You know, I'm not sure I ever really read the Pond Rules at our local nature preserve all that closely before
November 25, 2025 at 1:24 AM
You know, I'm not sure I ever really read the Pond Rules at our local nature preserve all that closely before
I'll admit that I occasionally watch Forged in Fire (a reality show where people make edged weapons under time pressure—don't judge 😄). One of the things I find particularly interesting is how the contestants continually make the same mistakes that brought down contestants in previous shows.
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November 24, 2025 at 7:59 PM
I'll admit that I occasionally watch Forged in Fire (a reality show where people make edged weapons under time pressure—don't judge 😄). One of the things I find particularly interesting is how the contestants continually make the same mistakes that brought down contestants in previous shows.
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I will never understand how people do not see the tight coupling of security and quality. You can't have the former without the latter. They call it an "exploit" because the hacker is exploiting a bug.
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November 23, 2025 at 4:31 PM
I will never understand how people do not see the tight coupling of security and quality. You can't have the former without the latter. They call it an "exploit" because the hacker is exploiting a bug.
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Let’s talk about “Move fast and break things.” First of all, Facebook itself changed its motto to “Move fast with stable infrastructure” in 2014. So much for breaking things, at least if you’re a soulless corporate behemoth.
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November 22, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Let’s talk about “Move fast and break things.” First of all, Facebook itself changed its motto to “Move fast with stable infrastructure” in 2014. So much for breaking things, at least if you’re a soulless corporate behemoth.
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The latest Cloudflare and Amazon outages have got me thinking about utilities. We can't build modern software without dependencies. The days of running entirely on the client are over, which I see as a good thing. The cost is that we rely on infrastructure.
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November 18, 2025 at 8:03 PM
The latest Cloudflare and Amazon outages have got me thinking about utilities. We can't build modern software without dependencies. The days of running entirely on the client are over, which I see as a good thing. The cost is that we rely on infrastructure.
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I've worked in "Agile" organizations for my entire 40+ year career, starting with my very first job.
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November 17, 2025 at 5:36 PM
I've worked in "Agile" organizations for my entire 40+ year career, starting with my very first job.
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<rant> A periodic reminder that Sprints, Backlogs, Daily Scrums, Scrum Boards, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Points, Velocity, PIs, etc., have NOTHING AT ALL to do with "Agile." Agility comes from working small, delivering frequently for feedback from actual customers, and adapting based on
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November 15, 2025 at 7:00 PM
<rant> A periodic reminder that Sprints, Backlogs, Daily Scrums, Scrum Boards, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Points, Velocity, PIs, etc., have NOTHING AT ALL to do with "Agile." Agility comes from working small, delivering frequently for feedback from actual customers, and adapting based on
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Reposted by Allen Holub
I’m not going to name you publicly, but if you were the speaker who put in the abstract that was so obviously written by ChatGPT it made me groan “Oh, come on” so loud people asked what I was looking at and then they groaned too, you should be almost as embarrassed as the people who accepted it
November 14, 2025 at 4:17 AM
I’m not going to name you publicly, but if you were the speaker who put in the abstract that was so obviously written by ChatGPT it made me groan “Oh, come on” so loud people asked what I was looking at and then they groaned too, you should be almost as embarrassed as the people who accepted it
If you're about to start a sentence with "I shouldn't say this, but" don't say it!
November 12, 2025 at 2:37 AM
If you're about to start a sentence with "I shouldn't say this, but" don't say it!
The solution to layoffs is starting your own company. It is not as difficult as people think. You do not need (or want) VC funding. You do not need (or want) a large, complex product or to solve a huge problem.
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November 10, 2025 at 7:00 PM
The solution to layoffs is starting your own company. It is not as difficult as people think. You do not need (or want) VC funding. You do not need (or want) a large, complex product or to solve a huge problem.
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Disagreements are not problems. They are opportunities to learn. For example, when I have to prove something that seems intuitively correct to me, I have to drill deeply into things like hard numbers.
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November 9, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Disagreements are not problems. They are opportunities to learn. For example, when I have to prove something that seems intuitively correct to me, I have to drill deeply into things like hard numbers.
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Reposted by Allen Holub
This is heartbreaking. The people causing this are fucking monsters.
With SNAP benefits going out late, nonprofits are begging for pet food donations to prevent desperate owners from surrendering their dogs and cats to animal shelters.
Families on SNAP worry about not just feeding themselves but also their pets
With SNAP benefits going out late, nonprofits are begging for pet food donations to prevent desperate owners from surrendering their dogs and cats to animal shelters.
bit.ly
November 8, 2025 at 5:31 PM
This is heartbreaking. The people causing this are fucking monsters.
To my thinking, "Scrum Master" is not a role. It's a collection of "accountabilities" (to use the makes-me-shudder Scrum Guide terminology) that can be distributed across the team.
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November 6, 2025 at 4:25 PM
To my thinking, "Scrum Master" is not a role. It's a collection of "accountabilities" (to use the makes-me-shudder Scrum Guide terminology) that can be distributed across the team.
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November 5, 2025 at 6:14 PM
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Reposted by Allen Holub
Building Ikea furniture this weekend reminded me of two challenging life facts:
* If it's not aligned, more force won't help.
* If it's aligned, more force won't help.
Take that, #996.
* If it's not aligned, more force won't help.
* If it's aligned, more force won't help.
Take that, #996.
November 3, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Building Ikea furniture this weekend reminded me of two challenging life facts:
* If it's not aligned, more force won't help.
* If it's aligned, more force won't help.
Take that, #996.
* If it's not aligned, more force won't help.
* If it's aligned, more force won't help.
Take that, #996.
One piece of common wisdom that I've come to disagree with is "do the most complicated thing first." In a waterfall world, that's a risk-reduction strategy, but in an incremental development context, it's actually the opposite.
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November 2, 2025 at 4:58 PM
One piece of common wisdom that I've come to disagree with is "do the most complicated thing first." In a waterfall world, that's a risk-reduction strategy, but in an incremental development context, it's actually the opposite.
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I've always hated the Apple-style infinitely-long animated web pages where the scroll wheel just moves stuff around on the page rather than scrolling. All that does is add confusion and make me work harder to see actual content.
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November 1, 2025 at 6:52 PM
I've always hated the Apple-style infinitely-long animated web pages where the scroll wheel just moves stuff around on the page rather than scrolling. All that does is add confusion and make me work harder to see actual content.
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I regularly hear about people pushing (and creating PRs) for essentially unreviewed AI-generated work. A "vibe coder" who accepts what the LLM creates without thought is causing more problems than they're worth. It is the responsibility of whoever is using an LLM to write the code to:
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October 29, 2025 at 3:32 PM
I regularly hear about people pushing (and creating PRs) for essentially unreviewed AI-generated work. A "vibe coder" who accepts what the LLM creates without thought is causing more problems than they're worth. It is the responsibility of whoever is using an LLM to write the code to:
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I’ve been thinking about the exuberance (and often hostility) surrounding vibe coding vs other techniques. Vibe coding is not particularly more efficient or productive than other approaches (as many studies show)—it’s just different.
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October 26, 2025 at 6:01 PM
I’ve been thinking about the exuberance (and often hostility) surrounding vibe coding vs other techniques. Vibe coding is not particularly more efficient or productive than other approaches (as many studies show)—it’s just different.
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Yesterday, I posted that the "fail fast" mantra doesn't sit well with me [https://t.ly/fXEzJ]. One thing I don't like about that maxim is the framing. To me, everything we do is an experiment.
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"Fail fast" is not a viable approach to software construction. There's no benefit in constant failure. What we want to do is succeed fast. Do that with small batches and frequent corrections based on… | Allen Holub | 48 comments
"Fail fast" is not a viable approach to software construction. There's no benefit in constant failure. What we want to do is succeed fast. Do that with small batches and frequent corrections based on feedback. That's not "failure," it's just part of the process.
Software-by-throwing-spaghetti-against-the-wall, something implicit in that "fail fast" mantra, is not viable. | 48 comments on LinkedIn
t.ly
October 23, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Yesterday, I posted that the "fail fast" mantra doesn't sit well with me [https://t.ly/fXEzJ]. One thing I don't like about that maxim is the framing. To me, everything we do is an experiment.
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"Fail fast" is not a viable approach to software construction. There's no benefit in constant failure. What we want to do is succeed fast. Do that with small batches and frequent corrections based on feedback. That's not "failure," it's just part of the process.
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October 22, 2025 at 7:06 PM
"Fail fast" is not a viable approach to software construction. There's no benefit in constant failure. What we want to do is succeed fast. Do that with small batches and frequent corrections based on feedback. That's not "failure," it's just part of the process.
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