(The below text version of the notes is for search purposes and convenience. See the PDF version for proper formatting such as bold, italics, etc., and graphics where applicable. Copyright: 2022 Retraice, Inc.)

Ma17: Addendum--Thinking and Computing

Margin by Retraice^1

We also did homework and code during November 2020 to February 2022.

Air date: Monday, 7th Mar. 2022, 5:00 PM Eastern/US.

Books and homework

In Ma16^2 , I failed to discuss two things.

First, the thinking done during that period: Reading books and audiobooks is valuable to our business. I did a lot of reading to do with the 11 hypotheses^3 , and books on homework that I knew I should've already read by now, e.g. on evolution and chemistry. Also, I read conspiracy theory stuff, e.g. more on Allen Dulles and the CIA, and UFOs. All of this is in service of content, the core of our business.

Computing stuff

Second: The computing done during that period: I did initial work on the website in Feb. 2021, because we're seriously considering building our own website with Django (a Python web framework). It makes a lot of business sense to roll our own, although not necessary enough business sense yet. And then in October, during a lucky period, I spent about a month on software engineering (which is coding over time), learning about things such as Hyrum's Law.^4

Code because notes because content

Why on earth does a podcast needs thousands of lines of code? It's mostly to do with the show notes you're reading right now. They might seem like overkill at best, colossal waste at worse, but they're not for you, dear listener. They're for us. They make the content better, which is the most important thing in the podcasting universe. It's relatively easy to create a great segment (single episode), but it's very hard to create a great podcast (long-term series of episodes). Of course, Retraice and Margin are not great yet; but they're designed to eventually become great. And a huge part of that is the show notes, which make the content better by efficiently making thoughts and utterances possible that otherwise wouldn't be. Remember, we're just at the beginning of this thing (luck permitting). We've got a lot of WIP (work-in-progress, a nasty word in business), and processing that WIP depends on the constructive progress that the show notes make possible.

The code generates the notes, and then checks what's been generated. Text processing is no joke (special characters, and output reverse-checking^5 have created a lot of extra work for us). Currently, the output is: the full notes (you're reading now) in text and PDF, and the RSS feed and Youtube notes (key info, but no prose).

And even the notes themselves have caught some attention, e.g. Ma8^6 .

_

References

Margin (2020/10/28). Ma8: Revolution Before Evolution. retraice.com. https://www.retraice.com/segments/ma8 Retrieved 30th Oct. 2020.

Margin (2022/03/02). Ma16: November 2020 to February 2022. retraice.com. https://www.retraice.com/segments/ma16 Retrieved 5th Mar. 2022.

Retraice (2022/03/07a). Re17: Hypotheses to Eleven. retraice.com. https://www.retraice.com/segments/re17 Retrieved 17th Mar. 2022.

Retraice (2022/03/07b). Re18: Plan of Attack. retraice.com. https://www.retraice.com/segments/re18 Retrieved 25th Mar. 2022.

Winters, T., Manshreck, T., & Wright, H. (2020). Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time. O'Reilly Media. ISBN: 978-1492082798. Free version and Searches: https://abseil.io/resources/swe-book https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9781492082798 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9781492082798 https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/software-engineering-at/9781492082781/

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/margin

^2 Margin (2022/03/02)

^3 See Retraice (2022/03/07a) and Retraice (2022/03/07b).

^4 Winters et al. (2020) p. 8: "With a sufficient number of users of an API, it does not matter what you promise in the contract: all observable behaviors of your system will be depended on by somebody."

^5 By this term we mean: After the files to be published have been created, we then process those files `in reverse' to make sure that the output matches the input. Our software engineering skills are meager, but we are getting the job done.

^6 Margin (2020/10/28)