The Assumptions That Break Systems

Feb 15 2026

Every bug you've ever spent hours hunting had the same root cause: something you were sure was true, wasn't. Assumptions are the invisible scaffolding of software development — inferences we treat as facts because checking everything is impossible, and our cognitive context, much like an LLM's, has hard limits. The dangerous part isn't making assumptions; it's losing track of which beliefs are proven and which are just comfortable shortcuts. Even tests — our best tool for replacing assumptions with proof — are themselves built on assumptions. This is the paradox at the heart of reliable software.

AI Design Philosophy

 It's All About Decisions

Feb 14 2026

Software development isn't a typing discipline. It's a decision-making discipline. And now that you can prototype five approaches in the time it used to take to build one, the decisions matter more than ever.

AI Design Philosophy

 Why Your Code Always Feels Wrong (And That's Okay)

Oct 7 2025

Every developer faces the same impossible choice: keep all your logic in one place and watch it become an unmaintainable monster, or split it across multiple files and create a maze where simple changes require archaeological expeditions through twelve layers of indirection. This isn't a sign you're doing it wrong—it's the fundamental tension of software architecture. The good news? Both approaches are tools, not traps. Understanding when to use monolithic clarity versus distributed modularity, and having the courage to refactor between them as your system evolves, is what separates thoughtful architecture from cargo-cult pattern following. Your code will always feel imperfect, and that's exactly how it should feel when you're working on something complex enough to matter.

Architecture Design Philosophy

 It's All About Semantics

Sep 14 2025

Programming exists in two worlds: the syntactic realm of compilers and the semantic realm of human understanding. While syntax gets code to run, semantics determine whether systems can evolve. Every name, abstraction, and domain boundary creates semantic contracts that either enable or constrain future development. When business concepts contaminate infrastructure layers—like introducing "squads" into an S3 client—semantic pollution occurs, creating rigid systems that resist change. Clean semantic architecture requires disciplined vocabulary, respected domain boundaries, and recognition that we're not just building software, but building languages. The words we choose today become the conceptual framework that shapes what our systems can become tomorrow.

Design Philosophy

 Value Objects for the Win!

Jun 15 2025

Value Objects solve the primitive obsession problem by encapsulating data, validation, and behavior in a single unit. Stop scattering domain logic and start creating more cohesive, maintainable code.

DDD Design

 Lifespan Strategies

Jun 14 2025

Mutability × Time: The Compound Risk series.
\r\nProven techniques for containing the compound risk of mutable state over time. From theoretical patterns to a successful real-world refactoring that eliminated invisible coupling.

Best Practices Design Philosophy

 Invisible Coupling

Jun 14 2025

Mutability × Time: The Compound Risk series.
\r\nWhy components become secretly coupled through shared mutable state. Examines how invisible dependencies erode trust and create debugging nightmares separated by both code and time.

Best Practices Design Philosophy

 The Mutation Timeline

Jun 14 2025

Mutability × Time: The Compound Risk series.
\r\nThe anatomy of object decay over time. Examines how instances progress through Birth, Initialization, Drift, Contamination, and Corruption—and why each stage compounds the previous problems.

Best Practices Design Philosophy

 The Lifespan Paradox

Jun 14 2025

Mutability × Time: The Compound Risk series.
\r\nWhy longer-lived mutable instances become exponentially more dangerous over time. Explores the counterintuitive relationship between object longevity and system reliability through a real-world state management failure.

Best Practices Design Philosophy

 A philosophy of software design - John Ousterhout

May 1 2025

I read A Philosophy of Software Design about 18 months back. It's a well-structured, concise read about managing complexity in software design. I don't think the suggested approaches are applicable in all situations (and John Ousterhout says this himself IIRC), but I recognised a lot of the problems described in the book and found it provided some useful ways to articulate concepts during code reviews (eg. whether adding a shallow function is increasing complexity in a codebase, if complexity can be pulled down into an implementation, or where it's useful to have consistency in the code).

Design Philosophy Software Development