Continuous Delivery

Is an excellent book by Jez Humble and Dave Farley. As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages...

Software delivers no value until it is in the hands of its users.

The pattern that is central to this book is the deployment pipeline.

It should not be possible to make manual changes to testing, staging, and production environments.

If releases are frequent, the delta between releases will be small. This significantly reduces the risk associated with releasing and makes it much easier to to roll back.

Branching should, in most circumstances, be avoided.

Dashboards should be ubiquitous, and certainly at least one should be present in each team room.

One of the key principles of the deployment pipeline is that it is a pull system.

A corollary of having every version of every file in version control is that it allows you to be aggressive about deleting things that you don't think you need... The ability to weed out old ideas and implementations frees the team to try new things and to improve the code.

It should always be cheaper to create a new environment than to repair an old one.

The goal of continuous integration is that the software is in a working state all the time... Continuous is a practice not a tool... Continuously is more often than you think.

The most important practice for continuous integration to work properly is frequent check-ins to trunk or mainline.

Ideally, the compile and test process that you run prior to check-in and on your CI server should take no more than a few minutes. We think that ten minutes is about the limit, five minutes is better, and about 90 seconds is ideal.

Enabling developers to run smoke tests against a working system on a developer machine prior to each check-in can make a huge difference to the quality of your application.

Build breakages are a normal and expected part of the process. Our aim is to find errors and eliminate them as quickly as possible, without expecting perfection and zero errors.

Having a comprehensive test suite is essential to continuous integration.

You should also consider refactoring as a cornerstone of effective software development.

Building Microservices

Is an excellent book by Sam Newman. As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages...

Because microservices are primarily modeled around business domains, they avoid the problems of traditional tiered architectures.

Microservices should cleanly align to bounded contexts.

Another reason to prefer the nested approach could be to chunk up your architecture to simplify testing.

With an event-based collaboration, we invert things. Instead of a client initiating requests asking for things to be done, it instead says this thing happened and expects other parties to know what to do. We never tell anyone else what to do.

We always want to maintain the ability to release microservices independenty of each other.

A red build means the last change possibly did not intergrate. You need to stop all further check-ins that aren't involved in fixing the build to get it passing again.

The approach I prefer is to have a single CI build per microservice, to allow us to quickly make and validate a change prior to deployment into production.

No changes are ever made to a running server.

Rather than using a package manager like debs or RPMs, all software is installed as independent Docker apps, each running in its own container.

Flaky tests are the enemy. When they fail, they don't tell us much... A test suite with flaky tests can become a victim of what Diane Vaughan calls the normalization of deviance - the idea that over time we can become so accustomed to things being wrong that we start to accept them as being normal and not a problem.

All too often, the approach of accepting multiple services being deployed together drifts into a situation where services become coupled.

Most organizations that I see spending time creating functional test suites often expend little or no effort at all on better monitoring or recovering from failure.

BCPL

BCPL, by Martin Richards and Colin Whitby-Strevens is an excellent book by (isbn 0-521-21965-5). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

The most important feature of the idealized object machine is its store, which consists of a set of numbered storage cells arranged so that the numbers labelling adjacent cells differ by one. All storage cells are the same size (a constant of the implementation, which is usually between 16 and 36 bits).

The readability of a program largely depends on the skill and style of the programmer; however his task is simplified if he is using a language with a rich set of expressive but concise constructions.

The philosophy of BCPL is not one of the tyrant who thinks he knows best and lays down the law on what is and what is not allowed; rather BCPL acts more as a servant offering his services to the best of his ability without complaint, even when confronted with apparent nonsense. The programmer is always assumed to know what he is doing and is not hemmed in by petty restrictions.

A procedure is invoked by writing its name, followed by the list of arguments in brackets. There is no call statement as in Fortran or PL/I.

The section brackets $( and $) enclose the statements of a procedure, and are, in many respects, like begin and end in Algol.

As a matter of style, they [spaces] should be used frequently to enhance readability.

Comments are introduced by the character pair //.

The BCPL input/output system is based on the idea of a stream. A BCPL stream should be regarded as a sequence of characters.

One of the most useful features of BCPL is that one form of command is a set of statements enclosed in a $( $) pair. As a general rule in BCPL, anywhere you can write a simple command, you can use a compound command or a block. The set of statements enclosed in $( $) is called a compound command unless the statements starts with declarations, in which case the whole thing is called a block.

BCPL has been carefully designed so that function and routine calls bring little overhead.

You know know enough to write quite substantial programs, and it would be a good idea if you paused long enough to do so.

beyond culture

is an excellent book by Edward T Hall (isbn 0385124740). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages...

The investigation of out-of-awareness culture can be accomplished only by actual observation of real events in normal settings and contexts.

Research with business groups, athletic teams, and even armies around the world has revealed there is an ideal size for a working group. The ideal size is between eight and twelve individuals.

All theoretical models are incomplete. By definition, they are abstractions and therfore leave things out. What they leave out is as important as, if not more important that what they do not, because it is what is left out that gives structure and form to the system.

Paradoxically, studying the models that men create to explain nature tells you more about the men than about the part of nature being studied.

All bureaucracies are oriented inward, but P-type are especially so.

High context actions are by definition rooted in the past, slow to change, and highly stable.

High context communications are frequently used as art forms. They act as a unifying, cohesive force, are long-lived, and are slow to change. Low context communications do not unify; however, they can be changed easily and rapidly.

Nothing happens in the world of human beings that is not deeply affected by linguistic forms.

If there is anything that can change the character of life, it is how time is handled.

M-time emphasizes schedules, segmentation, and promptness. P-time systems are characterized by several things happening at once. They stress involvement of people and completion of transactions rather than adherence to preset schedules.

By scheduling, we compartmentalize; this makes it possible to concentrate on one thing at a time, but it also denies us context.

In many forms, culture designates what we pay attention to and what we ignore.

The natural act of thinking is greatly modified by culture.

Low-context cultures seem to resist self-examination.

Alfred Korzybski and Wendell Johnson, founders of semantics, identified the Extention Transference factor in the use of words and published extensively on the profound effects of mistaking the symbol for the thing symbolized while endowing the symbol with properties it does not possess.

Environments are not behaviorally neutral.

For some reason, people reared in the European tradition feel more comfortable if they have a rule to fall back on, even if it doesn't fit.

the psychology of computer programming

is an excellent book by Jerry Weinberg. As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:
I've read this book twice before, once here, and again here.

We must deal with one other problem, which is important because of a seldom questioned view of programming - a view which this book will spend a great deal of time questioning. That view is that programming is an individual activity.

Now that hardware has grown cheaper whilst labor has grown more expensive, group members are much less likely to share a machine and system than there were years ago.

The requirement to develop capability cannot be met adequately by a single person. We learn much faster and much better with the active cooperation of others.

Has anyone ever thought of asking appplicants whether or not they like programmming?

With adults, however, the barriers to learning have usually become internalized, and the average adult learns very little of left to his own devices.

It is a well-known psychological principle that in order to maximize the rate of learning, the subject must be fed back information on how well or poorly he is doing.

Such companies are sitting ducks for anyone who comes along with a fancy package of promises - and with lots of sitting ducks, can the hunters be far behind?

An increase in salary only motivates for a short time it is the raise, not the salary level which is a symbol of current value.

To a surprising degree, the only time we fail to learn is when there are negative forces set up against it.

Because the machines are rigid, the people who use them must, if they are to be successful, supply more than their share of flexibility.

We are trying to make the machine help people take advantage of the immense psychological resources they have in overcoming their immense psychological shortcomings.

the universal computer

is an excellent book by Martin Davis (isbn 978-1-4665-0519-3). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

Liebnitz's involvement with the Harz Mountain mining project ultimately proved to be a fiasco. In his optimism, he had not forseen the natural hostility of the expert mining engineers towards a novice proposing to teach them their trade. Nor had he allowed for the inevitable break-in period a novel piece of machinery requires or for the unreliability of the winds.

Unlike the usual experience with a new untried gadget, Turing's Bombes, built from his design, worked correctly as soon as they were made.

"There are several theorems which say almost exactly that ... if a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent... But these theorems say nothing about how much intelligence may be displayed if a machine makes no pretence at infallibility." [Turing]

There is nothing in Godel's theorem to preclude the mathematical powers of a human mind being equivalent to an algorithmic process that produces false as well as true statements.

It is interesting to contrast von Neumann's view of computer programming as an activity with Turing's; von Neumann called it "coding" and made it clear that he thought of it as a clerical task requiring little intellect. A revealing anecdote tells of a practice at the Institute for Advanced Study computer facility of using students to translate by hand, computer instructions written using human-readable mnemonics into machine language. A young hot-shot programmer proposed to write an assembler that would do this conversion automatically. Von Neumann is said to have responded angrily that it would be wasteful to use a valuable scientific tool to do a mere clerical job. In his ACE report, Turing said that the process of computer programming "should be very fascinating. There need be no real danger of it ever becoming a drudge, for any processes that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself."

There is no reason to think that a full scale ACE-style computer would not have worked well if the organization and resources to build one had been there. The issue is best understood in the more general context of the question of which computer functions should be supplied by the hardware and which by software. Turing had proposed a relatively simple machine in which a lot was left to be supplied by software, but where, in compensation, the programmer had very substantial control of underlying machine operations.

"I expect that digital computing machines will eventually stimulate a considerable interest in symbolic logic... The language in which on communicates with these machines ... forms a sort of symbolic logic." [Turing]

Searle tells us that Deep Blue "has a bunch of meaningless symbols." Well, if you could look inside Deep Blue when it was in operation, you wouldn't see any symbols, meaningful or not. At the level of circuits, electrons are moving around. Just as, if you look inside Kasparov's skull while he is playing, you wouldn't see any chess pieces, you'd see neurons firing.

Our consciousness is a principal way in which each of us experiences his or her unique individuality. But we know it only from the inside. We experience our own consciousness but not that of anyone else.

Dr Deming

is an excellent book by Rafael Aguayo, subtitled The American Who Taught The Japanese About Quality (isbn 0-671-74621-9). This book is also the source of the story about the coffee roasters. As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages

To improve output, production, sales, profit, quality, or any other important factor, every part of the organization had to improve.

Lowering the number of defects in a stable system can only be achieved by working on the system.

A perfectly good system can be ruined by overadjustment and trying too hard.

Overadjustment of a stable system invariably makes things worse. This deserves a special name - tampering.

We are ruined by best efforts. Best efforts without guidance from profound knowledge are oftentimes tampering, ruining perfectly good systems.

The causes of common cause problems cannot be attacked directly.

Good organization is hardly felt and hardly seen. If it is seen and felt, it is most likely the source of problems and therefore the source of loss.

Deming states unequivocally that merit reviews, by whatever name, including management by objectives, are the single most destructive force in American management today.

Running a company by proft alone is like driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror. It tells you where you've been, not where you are going.

The most important thing to know about any tool, including financial reports, is its limitations.

The usual assumption is that each number is due to one cause.

The specification may call for no more than 20 percent defective beads being delivered, which guarantees exactly 20 percent defectives.

Objective observers will only see what they're trained to see.

Because of excessive competition they have been left unable to compete.

If any of us were to purchase everything in our personal lives based on lowest price, we would soon go broke.

mind and nature

is an excellent book by Gregory Bateson (isbn 1-57273-434-5). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

If you want to understand mental processes, look at biological evolution and conversely if you want to understand biological evolution, go look at mental processes.

How is the world of logic, which eschews "circular argument," related to a world in which circular trains of causation are the rule rather than the exception?

Perception operates only on difference. All receipt of information is necessarily the receipt of news of difference, and all perception is necessarily limited by threshold. Differences that are too slight or too slowly presented are not perceivable.

The universe is characterized by an uneven distribution of causal and other types of linkage between its parts; that is, there are regions of dense linkage separated from each other by regions of less dense linkage.

We should define "stability" always by reference to the ongoing truth of some descriptive proposition.

Notoriously it is very difficult to detect gradual change because along with our high sensitivity to rapid change goes also the phenomenon of accommodation. Organisms become habituated. To distinguish between slow change and the (imperceptible) unchanging, we require information of a different sort; we need a clock.

Stability may be acheived either by rigidity or by continual repetition of some cycle of smaller changes, which cycle will return to a status quo ante after every disturbance.

Every given system embodies relations to time, that is, was characterized by time constants determined by the given whole. These constants were not determined by the equations of relationship between successive parts but were emergent properties of the system.

The shape of what it deposits is determined by the shape of the previous growth.

What characterizes those adaptations that turn out to be disasterous, and how do these differ from those that seem to be benign and, like the crab's claw, remain benign through geological ages?

Above all, in sexual reproduction, the matching up of chromosomes in fertilization enforces a process of comparison. What is new in either ovum or spermatozoon must meet with what is old in the other, and the test will favour conformity and conservation. The more grossly new will be eliminated on grounds of incompatibility.

It is very easy to fall into the notion that if the new is viable, then there must have been something wrong with the old. This view, to which organisms already suffering the pathologies of over rapid, frantic social change are inevitably prone, is, of course, mostly nonsense. What is always important is to be sure that the new is not worse than the old.

the tao is silent

is an excellent book by Raymond Smullyan (isbn 0-06-067-469-5). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

The Taoist strikes me as one who is not so much in search of something he hasn't, but who is enjoying what he has.

Just what is the Tao; how should one define the Tao? Perhaps one of my favourite definitons is: "the reason things are as they are."

"Don't look for the meaning; look for the use" [Ludwig Wittgenstein]

Is it completely out of the question that there may be objects in the universe which are so sensitive that the very act of naming them throws them out of existence?

It is unnameable because it changes in the very process of naming it.

The situation is perfectly analogous to a man who does not trust his dog and keeps him perpetually chained. The chaining process obviously makes the dog vicious, and the man then says, "You see why such a vicious dog has to be chained!"

You are trying to force that which can thrive only if it is not forced.

Kindness cannot be taught by harshness - not by any amount of harshness.

Freedom is doing what one likes: Zen is liking what one does.

The problem of hiring astrology professors is relatively easy. To hire an astrologer professor, all one has to do is to cast his horoscope and see if he would make a good astrology professor.

My immediate reaction to the remark "one should not be too tolerant" was to be intolerant of it.

Taiichi Ohno's workplace management

is an excellent book by Taiichi Ohno (isbn 978-0-07-180801-9). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

When I was a middle school student in the old system, we studied the Chinese classics, and during this class we learned from the Analects of Confucius. In these writings Confucious says, "The wise will mend their ways" and "The wise man should not hesitate to correct themselves."... Confucius was saying that we should change gracefully... I think his words mean that in the end it is not good if you hold onto your ideas too strongly and try stubbornly to justify them.

When we said we would set up a centralized grinding operation, one experienced worker said, "No, we tried that during the war, but it failed. That's why we do it the way we do now." [I said] "I did not see it fail during the war. Show me again how it fails. If I am persuaded by this, I will let you continue doing it the way you do it now."

If you asked me, "What is the most important part of production control?" I would say it is to limit overproduction.

The kanban was a slip that indicated how many pieces they were coming to get, so that if they were going to take ten parts this became a production instruction slip directing the production line to make ten pieces.

When lot sizes are small, you need to do changeovers more frequently.

Stopping the line causes a great loss, so this forces us to think, "How do we keep them from stopping the line?" and this results in more and more quality kaizen.

You can only really tell what is better based on results.

Accounting cannot do any cost reduction... The shop floor reduces inventory. This money goes to the bank... Instead, accounting thinks it just needs to allocate cost savings targets.

There is something called standard work, but standards should be changing constantly. Instead, if you think of the standard as the best you can do, it's all over. The standard is only a baseline for doing further kaizen. It is kaiaku if things get worse than now, and it is kaizen if things get better than now. Standards are set arbitrarily by humans so how can they not change?

You must create a standard for comparison.

Drop a nut once and pick it up. Working at the average time is like trying to catch the nut halfway because letting it drop all the way down takes too long... There is no such thing as average value in this world.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the old masters, seek instead what these masters sought. [Matsu Basho 1644-1694]

Once he asked me how the terms kaizen and kairyo (reform) were differentiated in the West. I said that while kaizen means to make improvements by using brains, kairyo means to make improvements by using money, and that in the West, most managers only think of improvement in terms of money. [Massaki Imai]

Let the flow manage the processes, and not let management manage the flow.

The aim of kanban is to make troubles come to the surface and link them to kaizen activity. I tell people, "Let idle people play rather than do unnecessary work."

The production line that never stops is either excellent or terrible.

Costs exist to be reduced, not to be calculated.

the pleasure of finding things out

is an excellent book by Richard Feynman (isbn 978-0-141-03143-9). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

Looking at the bird he says, "Do you know what that bird is? It's a brown throated thrush; but in Portuguese it's a … in Italian a …, " he says "in Chinese it's a …, in Japanese a …," etcetera. "Now," he says, "you know in all the languages you want to know what the name of the bird is and when you've finished with all that," he says, "you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You only know about humans in different places and what they call the bird. Now," he says, "let's look at the bird."

I said, "Say, Pop, I noticed something: When I pull the wagon the ball rolls to the back of the wagon, and when I'm pulling it along and I suddenly stop, the ball rolls to the front of the wagon," and I says, "why is that?" And he said, "That nobody knows," he said. "The general principe is that things that are moving try to keep on moving and things that are standing still tend to stand still unless you push on them hard." And he says, "This tendency is called inertia but nobody knows why it's true." Now that's a deep understanding - he doesn't give me a name, he knew the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something, which I learnt very early.

To do high, real good physics work you do need absolutely solid lengths of time.

You cannot expected old designs to work in new circumstances.

If you are in a hurry, you must dissipate heat.

We had lots of fun.

The people underneath didn't know at all what they were doing. And the Army wanted to keep it that way; there was no information going back and forth... I felt that you couldn't make the plant safe unless you knew how it worked… I said that the first thing there has to be is that the technical guys know what we're doing. Oppenheimer went and talked to the security people and got special permission. So I had a nice lecture in which I told them what we were doing, and they were all excited. We're fighting a war. We see what it is. They knew what the numbers meant. If the pressure came out higher, that meant there was more energy released and so on and so on. They knew what they were doing. Complete transformation! They began to invent ways of doing it better. They supervised the scheme. They worked all night. They didn't need supervising at night. They didn't need anything. They understood everything. They invented several of the programs that we used and so forth. So my boys really came through and all that had to be done was to tell them what it was, that's all. It's just, don't tell them they're punching holes. As a result, although it took them nine months to do three problems before, we did nine problems in three months.

Most of the trouble was the big shots coming all the time and saying you're going to break something, going to break something.

We used to go for walks often to get rest.

Advertising, for example, is an example of a scientifically immoral description of the products.

The magnetic properties on a very small scale are not the same as on a large scale.

But what we ought to be able to do seems gigantic compared with our confused accomplishments. Why is this? Why can't we conquer ourselves?

Erosion and blow-by are not what the design expected. They are warnings that something is wrong. The equipment is not operating as expected, and therefore there is a danger that it can operate with even wider deviations in this unexpected and not thoroughly understood way… The O-rings of the Solid Booster Rockets were not designed to erode. Erosion was a clue that something was wrong. Erosion was not something from which safety can be inferred.

We have also found that certification criteria used in Flight Readiness Reviews often develop a gradually decreasing strictness.

The computer software checking system and attitude is of highest quality. There appears to be no process of gradually fooling oneself while degrading standards so characteristic of the Solid Rocket Booster or Space Shuttle Main Engine safety systems. To be sure, there have been recent suggestions by management to curtail such elaborate and expensive tests as being unnecessary at this late date in Shuttle history. This must be resisted for it does not appreciate the mutual subtle influences, and sources of error generated by even small changes of one part of a program on another. There are perpetual requests for changes as new payloads and new demands and modifications are suggested by the users. Changes are expensive because they require extensive testing. The proper way to save money is to curtail the number of requested changes, not the quality of testing for each.

Official management, on the other hand, claims to believe the probability of failure is a thousand times less. One reason for this may be an attempt to assure the government of NASA perfection and success in order to ensure the supply of funds. The other may be that they sincerely believe it to be true, indicating an almost incredible lack of communication between themselves and their working engineers.

It is presumptuous if one says, "We're going to find the ultimate particle, or the unified field laws," or "the" anything.

we seven

is an excellent book by the seven mercury astronauts (isbn 978--4391-8103-4). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

By working with the designers and engineers on a brand-new, complicated airplane you learn to ferret out the bugs and problems before they can be built into the system to worry other pilots who will use later production aircraft. [John Glenn]

Looking back on it now, it sounds a bit silly. But it takes little moments like that to build up a person's tolerance of fear and his ability to face the unknown. [Malcomn Scott Carpenter]

When I got back to the States, I served a hitch teaching some younger pilots how to fly. This kind of duty is probably even more dangerous than combat. At least you know what a MIG is going to do. [Virgil Grissom]

A test-pilot is fiercely proud of his profession. [Walter Schirra]

I could not take care of the polyp right away because part of the procedure before they could operate on it was to keep me absolutely quiet for four days and not let me speak… Later on the medics did put me on a week's silent treatment. I had to break it only once when a NASA official called me up from Langley to ask me how my polyp was coming along. I told him he had just interrupted the cure. [Walter Schirra]

In combat, for example, you are thinking about what goes on outside of your airplane… But in test flying you have an entirely different problem. You are concerned about what is going on inside the airplane, and what the aircraft itself is doing. [Deke Slayton]

If you are an amateur in this business, and you just think you are in trouble, you can really get yourself into trouble very fast by doing the wrong thing first. You might be a whole lot better off if you did nothing at all. [Deke Slayton]

In flying, navigation is generally defined as "continuously detecting and correcting infinitesimal errors in the flight path." [Deke Slayton]

The schedule was flexible. We knew that variable factors such as weather, over which we would have no control, could cause delays. [John Glenn]

This panel groups all of the warning lights in one convenient place so we can see at a glance if any problems have cropped up. [John Glenn]

Each part that goes into the capsule has had a prototype tested to destruction to make sure it can stand the rough ride and the temperature changes. The test procedures are extremely painstaking. First, one part is tested; then two parts are linked together and both of them are tested as a unit. The small units are joined into bigger units for further testing, and this process continues until finally the entire machine is ready for a master test. [Malcomn Scott Carpenter]

We adopted three basic principles. First, we would use any training device or method that had even a remote chance of being useful. Second, we would make the training as difficult as possible so that we would be overtrained, if anything, rather then undertrained. And third, except for some wise scheduling of time, we decided to conduct our training on an informal basis. Everyone assumed from the start that we were mature, well-motivated individuals. Everyone knew we were all eager to make good. [Deke Slayton]

The manual went out of date as fast as the capsule grew… In the meantime… we had to work with some early drawings of the spacecraft that had been included in the original specifications. This was a bit like learning how to cook from looking into some chef's garbage pail. [Deke Slayton]

We did not blame any of our problems on such things as gremlins. For one thing, these creatures belonged to another era. [John Glenn]

We also had daily scheduling meetings to keep everyone informed of our progress and up to date on any problems which cropped up. Here is where we reviewed the work being done on the various systems. [Virgil Grissom]

Even though the electronic machines were clever, we did not let them run the show. [Alan Shepard]

agile development in the large

is an excellent book by Jutta Eckstein (isbn 978-0932633576). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

Quick feedback should be the first thing you introduce.

It is important that instead of the process being adopted it is adapted.

Starting with really short cycles seems to help implement the change to an agile process. If the cycles are short it is very difficult for the whole team to fall back into its old habits.

Learning and change processes are part of each other. Change is a learning process and learning is a change process.

Every agile process contains the following subtle steps
(1) reflection (awareness)
(2) learning
(3) change.

A plan is nothing; planning is everything. [Eisenhower]

If a project is on time and in budget it doesn't mean it was a successful project, but a successful estimate.

Methodologies do not produce skilled developers.

Stability is more negative than it is thought to be. [To stabilize something is to kill it]

A book is always a prevented dialogue.

more secrets of consulting

is an excellent book by Jerry Weinberg (isbn 978-0932633521). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

Consultants are hired for knowing what others don't know, so a consultant who stops learning soon decays in value.

It's always better to be a do-something rather than a know-everything.

The Wishing Wand reminds me of the ability to ask for what I want, and if necessary, to live with not getting it.

Modern psychology often scorns introspection and has become the study of other people's behaviour.

I personally think that big changes result from an accumulation of small changes.

Incongruence is stereotyped behaviour.

It takes big balance to learn small balance.

Nothing is immutably programmined into my mind - except its programmability. The ability of my mind to program itself is a far greater ability than any particular program.

Fear is one of the brakes on creativity.

In social engineering, as in all engineering, failures teach more than successes.

trustee from the toolroom

is an excellent book by Nevil Shute (isbn 978-0-099-52998-9). A marvelous tale of courage and friendship. As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

At last she asked, 'Do you think my Mummy and Daddy were very frightened when the ship got wrecked?' The adult quality of the question amazed him; children were so much older than you thought they were. 'No,' he said. 'No, I don't think that they'd ever have been frightened. They weren't that sort of people. And you won't be frightened of things either, I don't think.'

He was impressed and somehow amazed by the things he did not know. These men were working as a team, doing things together quickly and accurately, things that he could only guess at. He knew that on their teamwork the safety of the aircraft depended. All his own skill and ingenuity could not assist them by one iota; the most that he could do to help them in their work was to keep right out of their way.

Technical fields, he reflected, of necessity were small; if you were an expert in one subject you could not be expert also in all the others, for no man's mind was big enough. The man who designed the radar presentation that the controller had used to talk them down that morning would not himself have been able to bring them into a safe landing, for he would not have known sufficient about aeroplanes.

Where everything was strange this seemed no stranger than the rest.

He was scared stiff. He sat there in his cricket shirt and braces with Panama hat upon his head under the brilliant sun of the Hawaiian Islands, the bread and the corned beef untasted on the desk beside him, concentrating on doing the one that he had been taught, keeping the tiddly little triangle upon the lubber line.

Towards the morning it occurred to him that anyway he should not keep his grim forebodings to himself. Two heads, or several heads, were better than one. If he shared his apprehensions with other people someone might pull some rabbit out of an unthought-of hat, might make some suggestion that would somehow make Keith's journey to Tahiti safer.

Jack shook his head. 'Ma died last year. She was always wanting to get back to the islands, but she liked the television too, so she was pulled both ways.'

'I tell you one thing,' he said presently. 'I'll leave the little generator set here, in the Mary Belle.' Jack stared at him. 'Leave that here, with me?' 'That's right. This ship hasn't got a motor. She ought to have one.'

'I think when people get older,' he said, 'they kind of get more mellow. They kind of like to give help in return for help they get.'

She had decided in her own mind that he was honest.

She paused. 'Don't refuse him when he wants to do this little thing,' she said gently. 'You've given him a lot of pleasure with your letters and the clock. Let him do this for you.'

management of the absurd

is an excellent book by Richard Farson, subtitled Paradoxes in Leadership (isbn 0-684-83044-2). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

The more important a relationship, the less skill matters.

Any technique loses its power when it becomes evident that it is a technique.

People need to know they are dealing with a genuine person, not someone who is "managing" them.

It is only when the balance of power is relatively equal that truly candid communication can and should take place.

When we really listen, so that we understand the other person's perspective, we risk being changed ourselves.

Every management act in some way redistributes or reinforces power.

Ex-convicts are better able to rehabilitate prison inmates than is the prison staff. Ex-drug addicts are more successful in getting other addicts off drugs than are psychiatrists. Students learn more from each other than they do from their professors.

The introduction of highly participative systems tends to bring attacks on the stronger members, often the leaders, while more hierarchical systems bring attacks on the weaker members.

The way to judge your effectiveness is to assess the quality of the discontent you engender.

Scale is the enemy of creativity... Only prisons housing fewer than twenty inmates are likely to be rehabilitative.

The big change... held; the little ones have been much easier to resist.

We learn not from our failures but from our successes - and the failures of others.

By and large, organizations are simply not good at changing themselves. They change more often as a result of invasion from the outside or rebellion from the inside, less so as a result of planning.

Planning may not be effective at assessing the future, but it can be a good way to assess the present.

Strengths and weaknesses come dressed in the same clothing.

Children look at things we turn away from. Sometimes just pointing at what is going on is a valuable way to break through a barrier.

When people feel responsible for handling some situation in which they are, in fact, largely helpless, a dangerous combination of feelings is created: responsibility plus helplessness leads to abuse.

Training makes people more alike... Education... tends to make people different from each other.

the starfish and the spider

is an excellent book by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom (isbn 1-59184-143-7). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

This is a book about what happens when there is no one in charge. It's about what happens when there's no hierarchy.

Instead of a chief, the Apaches had a Nant'an - a spiritual and cultural leader. The Nant'an led by example and held no coercive power. Tribe members followed the Nant'an because they wanted to, not because they had to... The phrase "you should" doesn't even exist in the Apache language.

Instead of having a head, like a spider, the starfish functions as a decentralized network. Get this: for the starfish to move, one of the arms must convince the other arms that it's a good idea to do so. The arm starts moving, and then - in a process that no one fully understands - the other arms cooperate and move as well. The brain doesn't "yea" or "nay" the decision. In truth, there isn't even a brain to declare a "yea" or "nay". The starfish doesn't have a brain. There is no central command.

Open systems can't rely on a police force. On the one hand there's freedom to do what you want, but on the other hand, you have added responsibility: because there are no police walking around maintaining law and order, everyone becomes a guardian of sorts.

To collect money, you generally need to have an accountant somewhere, which leads to centralization.

When you give people freedom, you get chaos, but you also get incredible creativity.

It is the right as well as the duty of every managerial employee to criticize a central management decision which he considers mistaken or ill-advised... such criticism is not only not penalized; it is encouraged as a sign of initiative and of an active interest in the business. It is always taken seriously and given real consideration. [Peter Drucker]

I taught them that communication is to be upward if it is to work at all... I taught them that top management is a function and a responsibility rather than a rank and a privilege. [Peter Drucker]

A typical GM factory in the 1980s... if an employee make a mistake or detected a problem, he could stop the line, whereupon a loud alarm would sound... The Toyota assembly line... if an employee stopped the line a pleasant "ding-dong" would sound and teams would carefully study what was going on.

It's better, as the saying goes, to be vaguely right than precisely wrong.

When we are used to seeing something in a certain way, it's hard to imagine it being any other way. If we're used to seeing the world through a centralized lens, decentralized organizations don't make much sense.

the teachings of don juan

is an excellent book by Carlos Castaneda (isbn 978-0140192384). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages

By experiencing other worlds, then, we see our own for what it is and are thereby enabled also to see fleetingly what the real world, the one between our own cultural construct and those other worlds, must in fact be like.

There is nothing wrong with being afraid. When you fear, you see things in a different way.

Fear is the first natural enemy a man must overcome on his path to knowledge.

You dwell upon yourself too much. That's the trouble. And that produces a terrible fatigue.

Are you angry at me don Juan? I asked when he returned.
He seemed surprised at my question.
No! I'm never angry at anybody! No human being can do anything important enough for that. You get angry at people when you feel their acts are important. I don't feel that way any longer.

What will happen to the man if he runs away in fear?
Nothing happens to him except that he will never learn.
He will never become a man of knowledge. He will perhaps be a bully or a harmless, scared man, at any rate, he will be a defeated man. His first enemy will have put an end to his cravings.
And what must he do to overcome fear?
The answer is very simple. He must not run away. He must defy his fear, and in spite of it he must take the next step in learning, and the next, and the next. He must be fully afraid, and yet he must not stop. That is the rule! And a moment will come when his first enemy retreats. The man begins to feel sure of himself. His intent becomes stronger. Learning is no longer a terrifying task. When this joyous moment comes, the man can say without hesitation that he had defeated his first natural enemy.
Does it happen at once, don Juan, or little by little?
It happens little by little, and yet the fear is vanquished suddenly and fast. But won't the man be afraid again if something new happens to him? No. Once a man has vanquished fear, he is free from it for the rest of his life because, instead of fear, he has acquired clarity - a clarity of mind which erases fear. By then a man knows his desires; he knows how to satisfy those desires. He can anticipate the new steps of learning, and a sharp clarity surrounds everything. The man feels that nothing is concealed.

The freedom to choose a path imparted a sense of direction through the expression of personal inclinations.

Exertion entailed not only drama, but also the need of efficacy. Exertion had to be effective; it had to possess the quality of being properly channelled, of being suitable.

To become a man of knowledge was a task that could not be fully achieved; rather, it was an unceasing process comprising (1) the idea that one had to renew the quest of becoming a man of knowledge; (2) the idea of one's impermanency; and (3) the idea that one had to follow the path with heart.

zen in the art of archery

is an excellent book by Eugen Herrigel (isbn 978-0-14-019074-8). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

He who has a hundred miles to walk should reckon ninety as half the journey.

I have also tried to keep my language as simple as possible. Not only because Zen teaches and advocates the greatest economy of expression, but because I have found that what I cannot say quite simply and without recourse to mystic jargon has not become sufficiently clear and concrete even to myself.

No reasonable person would expect a Zen adept to do more than hint at the experiences which have liberated and changed him, or to attempt to describe the unimaginable and ineffable 'Truth' by which he know lives.

I hit upon the thought that there must be a trick somewhere which the Master for some reason would not divulge, and I staked my ambition on its discovery.

In spite of its being divided into parts the entire process seemed like a living thing wholly contained in itself and not even remotely comparable to a gymnastic exercise, to which bits can be added to taken away without its meaning and character being thereby destroyed.

I once remarked that I was conscientiously making an effort to keep relaxed, he replied: 'That's just the trouble, you make an effort to think about it. Concentrate entirely on your breathing, as if you had nothing else to do.

A great Master, he replied, must also be a great teacher.

You had to suffer shipwreck though your own efforts before you were ready to seize the lifebelt he threw you.

Do you know why you cannot wait for the shot and why you get out of breath before it has come? The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You do not wait for fulfilment, but brace yourself for failure.

Right presence of mind. This means that the mind or spirit is present everywhere, because it is nowhere attached to any particular place.

It is all so simple. You can learn from an ordinary bamboo leaf what ought to happen. It bends lower and lower under the weight of snow. Suddenly the snow slips to the ground without the leaf having stirred. Stay like that at the point of highest tension until the shot falls from you. So, indeed, it is: when the tension is fulfilled, the shot must fall, it must fall from the archer like snow from a bamboo leaf, before he even thinks it.

If I tried to give you a clue at the cost of your own experience, I should be the worst of teachers and deserve to be sacked! So let's stop talking about it and go on practising.

Don't ask, practice!

the principles and practice of fly and bait casting

Is an excellent book by Reginald D. Hughes (published 1924). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

The great majority of fishermen are ignorant of the actual principles which underlie their every act, whether right or wrong.

One certain index of efficiency is the absence of effort. Style is synonymous with efficiency, and style and effort do not go together.

Double-handed fly casting may especially be recommended as almost, if not quite, the most beneficial form of exercise one can take. It calls for the use of every muscle in the body. It exercises without exhausting.

Excessive effort is not only uncalled for, but if practised defeats itself.

Brute force alone will never put one in the front rank.

A tight grip means tense muscles and joints throughout the body. It kills all attempts to cast smoothly and easily. It imparts, through a vibrating rod tip, waves and irregularities to the line, and is very tiring even to an onlooker.

Remember that the rod should be practically noiseless. Any distinct "whoosh" is a sign of a faulty casting, and shows that the cast is made with the entire rod instead of with the top.

Hold or grip of the rod - there should be none. The rod merely rests in the right hand, while the left hand lightly encircles the butt end. Any tendency to a tight grip must be resolutely suppressed.

Both hands must do an equal share of the work.

Our desire is to cast the fly across and downstream at an angle of about 45 degrees. So we stand, as regards our feet, facing this direction, and, without moving them, rotate the body until we face downstream, rod low and pointing in the direction of the fly.

In learning these casts try to avoid too much concentration, as the great secret is to let the whole body be free and swing easily and comfortably, letting the rod do it, and it will do it if the timing is right.

If the line is allowed to slacken in the least, even momentarily, the pull on it is lost.