Barry O'Sullivan

I'm finally back to writing! Just wrote 1K words on the Dreyfus skills model and how I use it to grow other developers (and myself).

Man 'over the moon' after climbing Ireland's tallest peak 15 times in a row

I don't see what all the sisyphus is about

Every Reason Why I Hate AI and You Should Too maybe it's anti-innovation, maybe it's just avoiding hype. But one thing is clear, I'm completely done with hearing about AI.

malwaretech.com/2025/08/ever...

So you’re telling me the Wizard of Oz presented itself as a towering force of overwhelming technology, only to be unmasked as just some guy, off-screen?

"Just don't think about it!" and "Don't tie your identity to your job!" are excellent pieces of advice if you have the ability to turn off the "I CARE ABOUT THIS" switch in your brain!! I don't even know where the breaker box is for that shit, man!!!!!

Burnout is clinically understood as a combo of 6 factors—work overload, lack of control, insufficient rewards, breakdown in community, absence of fairness, & value conflicts—and only a fraction of it is under your control. Burnout is a systemic problem, so be kind to yourself and hard on the system.

Just bought this, sounds class. Also want to support yourself, your content has entertained me for a long time.

Testing Rule of Thumb: if some pieces of data are in the assert they must appear in the arrange or act phase first.

"Fundamental" truths about software:

- Code is liability

- The more code you have, the more bugs you tend to have

- The more complex a system, the more important architecture becomes

- Writing maintainable code is a lot more effort than just getting it to work

Many people confuse cruelty for strength.

They are not concrete.

Yeah, that's a common failing of some authors; they assume certain traits are unique to us, even though birds can do the same. We're more advanced versions of the same/similar systems.

As long as that's not the crux and is merely flavour to the book then I'm still interested. Thanks for that!

Intruiging, let me know your thoughts!

I've worked with charming people and this is excellent advice. Wait for the charm to wear off then reflect on the ask. Do not, under any circumstances, agree on the spot.

An effective and detailed plan can only be created in a mostly static and known environment. Unknowns and dynamics will rapidly render a detailed plan defunct.

On real problems, one cannot define away the complexity of the world in the interest of devising an elegant solution.

- preface to Software Fundamentals, Parnas.

They always have the worst amp as well, so the music is both too loud and grating.

that plato's cave shit wouldn't work on me. I'd notice I was in a cave for sure

Discarded a reply guy joke because it was rubbish. I consider this a win.

Legacy-Modernization.io Welcome to legacy-modernization.io - resources to help you modernize effectively

My new side project is live - @legacy-modernization.io

I curated my knowledge of legacy modernization patterns into a website.

I still have lots of content to add but the current version is hopefully a bit useful

legacy-modernization.io

#legacyModernization #architectureModernization

Dear AI coding helper, Sometimes a tab is just a tab and not a request to rewrite the line of code.

I use a spreadsheet to track all my documentation

It's important to keep all your docs in a row

You can't "project" your way to quality. Quality requires long term intent and consistency.

"How long would this take to implement in a greenfield context?"

This is one of the questions I ask myself a lot to understand the value of modernization for a given system.

The effort can be 10-100x more when you factor in all of the extra planning, discussions, integration, testing etc.

1/2

The Star Trek Armada II forums are lacking in diversity of thought. My posts about the importance of venture capital to society are met with flurries of replies calling me "off-topic" and "oblivious to why we're posting here"

🧵 I’ve reviewed conference talk submissions for +10 years. Here are my tips:
(Side note, I've sinned against all these tips myself 🙃)

a cartoon of a barbeque pit kit is being held up ALT: a cartoon of a barbeque pit kit is being held up

Reaction shot of me comparing the two diagrams.

The casino stuff is interesting, as they only mention the name of the business, but never the URL, and end the ad with "find us on the web". I think they're not able to advertise directly and are abusing a loophole.

No feckin idea. The algorithm is very confused about me. I get ads for casinos, tech businesses (e.g. square, sophos), bolt/uber, dating apps and wedding venues (I'm married), mortgages (already have one). They clearly think I have money and would LOVE to part with it.

Youtube advertisers really want me to form a gambling addiction. Non-stop casino adverts that look cheap as hell. The money they must spend on advertising this rubbish just shows how lucrative and insidious it all is.