Tame product development chaos with YOUR Platform.

2025

📚 Without docs -

⚖️ Code is a liability, not an asset -

✂️ YAGNI -

🐛Kernighan's Law -

🌀 Complex systems are hard to predict -

📊 Simple data formats + powerful tools scale -

📚 Documentation never has to go out of date again -

📚 Keep documentation close to the design/code -

📝 Document "why" not "how" -

🔄 Closed-loop engineering -

🚴 The power of movement -

🔄 Closed-loop humans -

🔄 Look for closed loops -

🔄 Close the loop with AI -

💰 Ways to reduce your AI costs -

💰 What is the cheapest PDM tool out there? -

🗂️ Git has an unfortunate name -

📁 Git* solves the problem of managing files -

📁 The file dilemma -

🔄 AI and documentation - close the loop -

🤖 AI is the new compiler -

✨ Anyone can write scripts now -

✏️ Effective Communication (Sketching) -

🎨 Effective Communication (Drawing) -

📹 Effective Communication (Video) -

📸 Effective Communication (Images) -

✍️ Effective communication (Written) -

🤖 How I use Claude Code to help publish this blog -

🎧 Effective communication (Audio) -

📧 Top vs bottom posting in email -

🎉 200 posts -

🔗 Integration, not isolation (part 2) -

🔗 Integration, not isolation -

📈 What do we mean by scaling? -

🔄 Open loops -> technical debt -

🧩 Composing is hard, complexity is easy -

🎼 Compose software like music -

🌱📈 Simplicity scales -

📏 Goodhart's law -

📈 Why GUI development tools don't scale -

🔭 Text based formats and command-line tools are the future -

🔄 Flipping the playbook for AI coding -

🧑‍💻 The first step in AI coding -

👥 Alternatives to meetings -

🥣 The two ingredients for agility -

♻️ How to iterate quickly on hardware -

🤝 Modern product development is a collaborative endeavor -

✨ Use the most advanced technology that is comfortable in your product design -

🔄 When to update application dependencies? -

➡️ Frontload the boring stuff -

🌿 A natural way to get more testing/automation -

🌒🌓🌔The four phases of product development -

⏩ Get on with it ... -

👥 Who are users? -

♻️ How to define an iteration? -

🧑‍💻 How can we increase developer productivity? -

📈 What is the quickest way to store and track data? -

🌱 OSS can decrease or increase your code liability -

🤝🔍 Trust, but verify -

🌽 What is the easiest way to avoid silos? -

🤖 The biggest problem with AI -

🤖 What is AI good for? -

📝 What is my process for capturing experience? (part 3) -

📝 What is my process for capturing experience? (part 2) -

📝 What is my process for capturing experience? -

🧠 How to leverage experience? -

🔭 How to encourage vision? -

🧠🔭 The tension of experience and vision -

🛣️ Two approaches to life -

🏆 The entire story -

👤 It's all about the people -

🧠🔭 Experience and Vision -

📊 Past performance ... -

✔️ Legacy code -

🚀 Git driven CD -- you know what got deployed -

💸 Technical debt -

🛠️ Another reason to self-host Gitea -

👷 The tension between solo and collaborative work -

🕹️ What can we control? -

😩 Boring, error-prone, repetitive, tedious work -

🧑‍💻 Will AI cause coding to disappear? -

✅ Guarantees -

🔄 The 2nd key to effective process -

🛠️ Git* -- the new standard for workflow -

🛠️ The defining characteristic of a good workflow tool -

🛠️ The critical features of workflow tools -

✉️ Email filters -

👥 Everybody Works and the impact on meetings -

👥 Efficient meetings -

👥 Meetings and human relationships -

👥 Why meetings? -

⚖️ Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling -

👌 Struggling to scale your IoT system? Simplify your data. -

🔄 The secret to process -

⚙️ Fix systems, not people -

📈 Scaling -

🌅 Simple stuff is boring -

👌 The simple/basic things are the most important to get right -

✅ The problem with software -

🌻 Downstream, things should be better -

🪙 Complexity and Simplicity -- two sides of the same coin -

⬆️ The business case for improvement -

⬆️ The path of improvement -

⬆️ What is improvement? -

👷 Make less work for others, part 2 -

👷 Do we make more work for others or less? -

🔄 The business model for updates -

🔄 What is the best software release frequency? -

🚀 How can Arch Linux get by without releases? -

⚖️ Truth is discovered, not invented -

🔗 Connected systems are different -

🛡️ How to get to secure and reliable -

🏭 Semi-structured part numbers -

👤 Who is our "customer"? -

⚠️ Toward a Theory of Medical Fallibility -

🛤️ Two paths with experience -

🛤️ Two paths -

👥 Your team as the customer -

🚀 Why are releases important? -

📄 Who is a changelog for? -

👥 Who is the customer in organizational hierarchy? -

👤 Confusion about when we are the customer -

🕊️ Simple -- from whose perspective? -

🕊️ Simple to maintain vs simple to implement -

🤝 Integrate early -

🕊️ Simple to use vs simple to implement -

🤏 Handling the small details -

🛠️ Selecting tools -

🛠️ Two classes of tools -

📝 Documentation is part of the process, not an afterthought -

✨ Demos vs. Products -

🧩 The three legs of YOUR Platform -

🔍 The importance of small Git commits/pull-requests -

🎆 100 daily emails -

🔁 The importance of Git Commit/Push often -

💭 Thinking, Designing, Developing, Engineering ... -

🔧 envsetup.sh -- a very useful automation technique -

📧 Effective email is either a pointer or notification -

🎓 The problem with experts -

🍳 Preparation - lessons from the kitchen -

😊 Joy -

🪞 Platform reflection -

2024

🙏 Humility -

🔄 The biggest benefit to frequent updates -

📅 Dates in filenames -

🔄 Lifecycle management in dynamic systems -

🧪 Abstractions and Platforms -

🤝 Keeping commitments -

📝 Personal vs. collaborative documentation -

🔧 What is your most important tool? -

📧 Inbox zero -

🏆 Goals vs. Systems -

🏁 Easy to start vs. easy to finish -

🎧 Use a headset optimized for calls -

⚡ Are your processes proactive or reactive? -

⚖️ Architecture vs. Optimization -

Creativity -

🔗 Coupling -

⏰ A platform stuck in time -

🧪 What is a good abstraction? -

⚡ Improve development efficiency, reduce technical debt -

🎯 Rituals and Culture -

📈 Two ways to scale -

🔍 How to get the little things done? -

😊 How can you make your commercial source code customers happy? -

🚀 Platforms vs Architecture Astronautics -

💪 Habits -- a critical ingredient in YOUR Personal Platform -

🚀 Advanced technology and small players -

What can kids teach us about platforms? -

🏛️ What are the pillars of a good platform? -

🛣️ Kayaks and Platforms -

💻 What is the purpose of technology? -

✨ The easiest path to reliability ... -

🔍 Where do reliability/stability problems typically come from? -

🔝 Support from the top -

🎯 Doing more with less, rather than less with more -

🆘 How to ask for help -

🔧 How to keep a product maintainable? -

🤝 What happens when someone else tries to use your work? -

📌 Where do you put stuff? -

🌱 When edge nodes grow up -

🔠 How do you partition systems? -

🏷️ How do you consistently name things? -

🔄 How can we be more consistent? -

🔄 Does consistency matter? -

🎲 Isn't it risky to update your dependencies? -

🏗️ Platforms are for building systems -

💸 The cost of updating dependencies, or not -

🆚 What is the difference between YOUR Platform and other platforms? -

💪 Good enough is not good enough -

⚠️ When things go wrong ... -

🚀 Do you own your deployment? -

🔧 What will you improve today? -

What is the role of vision? -

🔮 Preparing for the future -

✅ The Platform Test -

🤖 What is the role of AI in your platform? -

🔄 What is the first thing you should implement? -

🚫 No Golden Machines -

🙋 How to help yourself? -

🔎 Seeing patterns -

🗝️ What is the best tool for private Git repos? -

🐶 Lessons from a 1-year old dog -

🔍 Solving problems or symptoms? -

🐙 Github and why does it matter? -

🔁 Tracking upstream and why does it matter? -

🔧 What makes a good Yocto BSP? -

⏰ The present or the future? -

👥 Platform != People -

✅ What is the simplest form of automation? -

📈 How does your product value increase after the initial sale? -

⚠️ Hack-it, ship-it, forget-it ... -

🏆 What is the #1 purpose of YOUR Platform? -

🌱 Culture -

🏗️ Three levels of YOUR Platform -

👣 What are the first steps? -

🔄 What is YOUR Platform? (v2) -

❓ But what if ... -

🔍 You are not Google -

💰 Owning YOUR platform is not more expensive -

⚖️ False vs Real Platform Development -

🎆 Do something different -

🐜 The smaller you are, the more import YOUR Platform is -

😨 Control is a scary thing -

🎛️ What is control? -

🎯 Why do we need some level of control? -

🏁 The long game -

♾️ It's about not starting over every time -

🌐 Complex Systems, Simple Platforms -

🔹 Simplicity -

🏢 What is your Platform? -

✨ The Beauty of Constraints -

😱 The tragedy of no constraints -

👋 Introduction -