Work loudly
6 min read
In an office, some of your visibility is free. Go remote and it drops to zero. Working loudly makes your impact visible as you do it, not after the fact in a status update nobody reads.
Posts
151 posts. For what I wrote while I worked at GitHub, see my GitHub years.
Start here
How to one-on-one
5 min read
Most 1:1s waste your team's only protected synchronous time on status updates. Here's how to run ones worth showing up for.
How I over-engineered my book
24 min read
My book has a linter, ~5,500 automated checks, and a Pandoc pipeline that rebuilds five formats (EPUB, Kindle, paperback ×2, and web) on every git push. For a book one person wrote. Here's how I built and published it the way I ship software.
The Zen of GitHub
3 min read
Call it taste, culture, or zen. Every organization has shared assumptions that guide decisions and resolve ambiguity in pursuit of its mission.
15 rules for communicating at GitHub
15 min read
How GitHub used issues and chat for async communication: fifteen rules that eliminate the 'you had to be there' problem in corporate workflows.
GitHub for non-developers: a beginner's guide
10 min read
No coding required. A plain-English guide to GitHub issues, pull requests, Markdown, and notifications for product managers, designers, legal, and ops.
How I re-over-engineered my home network for privacy and security
18 min read
How I used Docker Compose, Ansible, and Caddy to re-over-engineer my network setup for easier maintenance, treating my Raspberry Pi like cattle, not a pet.
Why everything should have a URL
15 min read
When knowledge lives in people's heads and inboxes, it doesn't scale. Giving decisions and processes URLs makes context discoverable, async, and opt-in.
Why you should work asynchronously
5 min read
Async is what makes remote work actually work. It produces better outcomes, improves work-life balance, and makes room for flow by moving past Cold War-era workflows.
Most read this month
2026 (15 posts)
The rule of no surprises
7 min read
Surprises break trust faster than setbacks. If something would surprise someone when they find out later, tell them now. Don't wait until it's convenient or until you have a fix.
Your documentation quality is your AI quality now
7 min read
AI tools are only as good as the docs you feed them. Bold text isn't a heading to a model. Here's the fix, plus two free converters.
It's pronounced JIF. The Open and Async audiobook is out.
5 min read
The Open and Async audiobook is out. It's read by a synthetic narrator who says 'jif,' correctly. For the hard-G crowd who insist that's heresy, I re-recorded an entire chapter in their (wrong) pronunciation and posted it free. One chapter the wrong way, or eleven and a half hours the right way.
Accessible by default: writing a book like software
9 min read
The ebook meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 Level AA) because the format wouldn't let me fake a heading and a browser audits every build, not because anyone scheduled a week for it. The parts Markdown can't check, like color contrast, axe-core catches under Playwright.
How I over-engineered my book
24 min read
My book has a linter, ~5,500 automated checks, and a Pandoc pipeline that rebuilds five formats (EPUB, Kindle, paperback ×2, and web) on every git push. For a book one person wrote. Here's how I built and published it the way I ship software.
Open and async on the Overcommitted podcast
1 min read
How people communicate matters more to a remote engineering team than where they sit. A conversation on the Overcommitted podcast about async-first culture, decision durability, and the ideas behind Open and Async.
Open and Async: the remote-work playbook is out
3 min read
Open and Async is the practical playbook for making remote and distributed work succeed. It covers two habits, working in the open and communicating asynchronously, drawn from a decade of remote-first lessons at GitHub.
Work loudly
6 min read
In an office, some of your visibility is free. Go remote and it drops to zero. Working loudly makes your impact visible as you do it, not after the fact in a status update nobody reads.
Reorgs happen
6 min read
In thirteen years at GitHub I was part of 25 reorgs, almost one every six months. Reorgs are a constant in tech, not a crisis. Here's how to navigate them.
AI-first program management
10 min read
AI-augmented program management is the natural evolution of async-first and engineering-inspired workflows. It amplifies human judgment instead of replacing it.
How to keep a brag doc (without the cringe)
5 min read
Nobody's tracking your wins for you. How to keep a brag doc in five minutes a week, what makes a good entry, and how it builds your promotion case.
How to one-on-one
5 min read
Most 1:1s waste your team's only protected synchronous time on status updates. Here's how to run ones worth showing up for.
No agenda, no meeting
2 min read
Announcing noagendanomeeting.net, a single-page site arguing that every meeting deserves an agenda and most meetings should be a document instead.
Agentic coding workflows run on pull requests
9 min read
I asked Copilot to add agentic workflows to my repo. It wrote this post instead: AI coding agents work best through pull requests and code review.
Thirteen years remote at GitHub: what works
6 min read
When I joined GitHub in 2013, I found a company that had rethought how work happens. Thirteen years later, those lessons still shape how I work.
2025 (1 post)
How to run LanguageTool on macOS
5 min read
Set up LanguageTool as a free, open-source Grammarly alternative that runs locally on your Mac. No subscription required.
2024 (1 post)
Silencing dissent isn't crisis management
4 min read
Silencing dissent erodes trust, invites negativity, and stifles learning. The best leaders embrace transparency instead.
2023 (10 posts)
Cathedral vs Bazaar People Management
5 min read
What if we applied open source's cathedral vs. bazaar metaphor to management? Cathedral managers control; bazaar managers empower.
How to communicate like a GitHub engineer (external link)
1 min read
How GitHub turned its guiding communication principles into prescriptive practices to manage internal signal-to-noise ratio.
Transparent collaboration is the andon of knowledge work
6 min read
Like Toyota's andon cord, transparent collaboration lets anyone stop the line when they spot a problem in knowledge work.
Remote work requires communicating more, less frequently
2 min read
Async communication is like gzip compression for humans: more processing up front, but greater throughput with fewer packets.
Pull requests are a form of documentation
3 min read
Pull requests capture not just what changed, but who, why, and what alternatives were considered. Treat every PR as a time capsule for future contributors.
Practice inclusive scheduling
1 min read
Write dates unambiguously, include time zones, and build in breaks. Small scheduling choices make distributed teams feel included.
Meetings are a point of escalation, not a starting point
3 min read
Most meetings are just information downloads that could've been a doc. Treat them as an escalation based on complexity, not the default starting point.
GitHub for non-developers: a beginner's guide
10 min read
No coding required. A plain-English guide to GitHub issues, pull requests, Markdown, and notifications for product managers, designers, legal, and ops.
How to write a great extended leave document
5 min read
A battle-tested template for handing off your responsibilities before extended leave, so your team stays unblocked and nothing falls through the cracks.
Manage like an engineer
8 min read
If issues, pull requests, and project boards are the best way to develop software, should they not also be the best way to manage software development?
2022 (4 posts)
Helpful 404s for Jekyll (and GitHub Pages)
3 min read
How to build 404 pages for Jekyll and GitHub Pages that automatically suggest similar URLs to those requested, using Levenshtein distance and your sitemap.
Why you should work asynchronously
5 min read
Async is what makes remote work actually work. It produces better outcomes, improves work-life balance, and makes room for flow by moving past Cold War-era workflows.
The seven things a corporate Chief of Staff does
12 min read
Seven core responsibilities that define the corporate Chief of Staff role, from tactical office management to strategic advising.
Leaders show their work
10 min read
Great leaders don't just communicate decisions. They explain how and why. Without that context, every decision sounds like "because I said so."
2021 (9 posts)
Using GitHub Actions to get notified when an API response (or web page) changes
4 min read
A customizable GitHub Actions workflow that uses cURL, jq, and Twilio to notify you via text message when a web page or API response changes.
How I re-over-engineered my home network for privacy and security
18 min read
How I used Docker Compose, Ansible, and Caddy to re-over-engineer my network setup for easier maintenance, treating my Raspberry Pi like cattle, not a pet.
Advice for managing open source communities at scale
2 min read
A four-part series on managing open source at scale: setting contributors up for success, automating workflows, governance, and moderation.
Moderating open source conversations to keep them productive
5 min read
Keep open source discussions productive with codes of conduct, community reporting, and tiered moderation tools to de-escalate conflict.
Five (and a half) practical tips for governing your open source project
5 min read
Practical tips for governing your growing open source project, from org-owned repos and enforcing 2FA to the triage role and appointing community managers.
Nine things a technical program manager does
9 min read
What does a technical program manager do? Nine things, from cross-team coordination to risk, by a product manager who helped found GitHub's TPM org.
Octoversary: eight years of optimizing for developer happiness
9 min read
Reflecting on eight years at GitHub, from GeoJSON rendering and GitHub Pages to trust and safety, open source licensing, and 200,000 words of blogging.
Interviewing or starting at GitHub? Read these first
6 min read
After 13 years working at GitHub, here's what I'd read before interviewing or starting there: how GitHubbers write things down, work async, and ship.
Analysis of federal .gov domains, pre-Biden edition
3 min read
A data-driven snapshot of 1,121 federal .gov domains ahead of the Biden administration, covering HTTPS adoption, CMS usage, open source, and more.
2020 (11 posts)
How I over-engineered my home network for privacy and security
13 min read
How I used a UniFi Dream Machine, VLANs, Pi-hole, cloudflared, and Cloudflare Gateway to over-optimize my network for privacy, security, and ad blocking.
The top 10 posts of the past 10 years
2 min read
Celebrating 10 years and nearly 200,000 words of blogging with a countdown of the most viewed posts, from open source licensing to communicating at GitHub.
Budget for the hidden "internet tax"
9 min read
Trust and safety is a cost of doing business on the internet. If you're building a platform, budget for abuse protection before someone gets hurt.
How I manage 200+ GitHub notifications a day
7 min read
My GitHub notifications setup: read the web inbox in batches, send @mentions to email, filter the rest in Gmail, and unsubscribe from threads often.
Tools of the trade: How I communicate at GitHub (and why)
7 min read
How I choose communication tools at GitHub, from issues to Slack and Zoom, and why the tool you pick matters as much as what you say.
Automate common open source community management tasks
5 min read
Never force a human to do what a computer can. How to automate code review, issue triage, and maintainer workflows to scale your open source community.
Seven ways to set open source contributors up for success
5 min read
Seven practical ways to set contributors up for success before they open their first issue, from the contributor funnel to being responsive.
Eight tips for working remotely
10 min read
Tools alone won't make remote work succeed. Eight cultural rules for effective async communication, regardless of your industry or role.
User blocking vs. user muting
9 min read
Why GitHub's approach to user blocking diverges from other social networks, and what's different about moderating a code collaboration platform.
10 lessons learned fostering a community of communities at GitHub
13 min read
What GitHub's Community and Safety team learned building a trust and safety framework to help maintainers grow healthy, open source communities.
Resolutions for sustaining and growing open source communities
6 min read
Four resolutions for being a better open source community member, from reducing your bus factor to being a gracious dinner party host to your contributors.
2019 (3 posts)
A community of communities: Empowering maintainers to grow communities around their code
1 min read
My OSCON 2019 talk on GitHub's approach to empowering maintainers to grow safe, welcoming open source communities that scale alongside the code.
Go near, go far, meet in the middle
5 min read
A three-phase approach for product managers joining established teams: tackle known wins, build a shared vision, then discover how to get there.
What lawyers can learn from open source
1 min read
How lawyers can adopt the workflows, tools, and philosophies of open source to make their legal practice more remote-friendly.
2018 (3 posts)
Problems, not solutions
5 min read
The most valuable thing a product manager can do is frame the right problem for the right user before anyone writes a line of code.
Yes, No, Maybe
4 min read
When responding to customer feature requests your answer should be in the form of "we're doing that", "we're not doing that", or "we might do that".
Why you probably shouldn't add a CLA to your open source project
13 min read
CLAs create a hostile developer experience, require significant overhead, and are usually unnecessary given modern open source norms.
2017 (7 posts)
Everything an open source maintainer might need to know about open source licensing
12 min read
There's lots of internet lore around open source licensing. An attorney and open source developer answers the most common questions.
Twelve tips for growing communities around your open source project
13 min read
Publishing code isn't enough. Twelve practical tips to attract users, welcome contributors, and grow a healthy open source community.
How not to prioritize a feature
7 min read
The hardest part of software development is not coming up with features to build, but instead, deciding what features will have the biggest impact.
Seven ways to consistently ship great features
6 min read
The best developers don't just write code. They over-communicate, ship the smallest delta, and optimize for users over maintainability.
Your project's README is your project's constitution
4 min read
Your README covers more than the "what" and "how." It communicates the "why," and that makes it your best defense against scope creep and technical debt.
Three easy ways to show employees they're appreciated
5 min read
Small gestures like recognizing birthdays, work anniversaries, and life milestones go a long way, especially when there's no water cooler.
Bikeshed honeypots
5 min read
A bikeshed honeypot is an obvious flaw you plant in a proposal to divert attention from the parts you feel strongly about.
2016 (10 posts)
Eight things I wish I knew my first week at GitHub
11 min read
Tips I shared with every new GitHubber, from shipping something in your first two weeks to pushing through the inevitable overwhelm.
The seven habits of highly effective GitHubbers
10 min read
Seven traits I've observed in successful GitHubbers over the years, from shipping early and often to the appreciation economy.
How to make a product great
7 min read
Great products absorb complexity on behalf of users, not the other way around. 10 principles for building software that's complex to build and easy to use.
Why you shouldn't write your own open source license
8 min read
Unless absolutely required, avoid custom, modified, or non-standard open source licenses, which become a barrier to downstream use of your code.
Removing a feature is a feature
7 min read
Features aren't free. Every time you remove one that doesn't serve your core use case, you're adding an implicit feature that does.
Books for geeks
1 min read
A curated reading list for developers who care about more than just code, covering technology, open source culture, and the business of software.
Twelve things a product manager does
10 min read
What does a product manager actually do all day? After six months of note-taking, here are 12 responsibilities from user advocacy to strategic thinking.
Moderating a controversial pull request
5 min read
Ground rules, assigned roles, and clear timelines keep controversial pull requests from devolving into the internet's comments section.
Optimizing for power users and edge cases is the easy part
5 min read
Stop optimizing for power users and edge cases. The real challenge is nailing the out-of-box experience for 80% of users.
How to derail any meeting
4 min read
How a WWII field manual can help modern knowledge workers identify those inadvertently sabotaging your organization today.
2015 (28 posts)
The six types of pull requests you see on GitHub
3 min read
Not all pull requests are equal. Six distinct strategies for using pull requests on GitHub, from quick heads-ups to deep reviews.
Open source as Yelp for software
8 min read
Open source is like Yelp for software, with the potential to shift the balance of power from publishers to consumers.
Why open source: 26 reasons to embrace it
17 min read
Open source isn't a fad. Here are twenty-six economic, moral, and personal reasons your organization should embrace it.
Four characteristics of modern collaboration tools
13 min read
The best collaboration tools share four traits: open, linkable, asynchronous, and process-capturing. Are you working the way you'd like?
Why everything should have a URL
15 min read
When knowledge lives in people's heads and inboxes, it doesn't scale. Giving decisions and processes URLs makes context discoverable, async, and opt-in.
The three biggest challenges in government IT
12 min read
Change aversion, lack of technocratic leadership, and heavyweight processes bred by distrust keep government IT 5–10 years behind the private sector.
Bringing open source workflows to the enterprise
7 min read
You don't have to share your code to benefit from open source. Adopting open source workflows behind the firewall produces more modern software regardless.
How to add an "improve this content" button to your GitHub Pages site
2 min read
Add an edit button to your GitHub Pages site and invite readers to collaborate on your content. It's just one predictable URL.
How GitHub uses automated testing to empower developers to write less-corporate blog posts
4 min read
Instead of relying on editors to catch marketing speak, use automated tests and CI to enforce voice, tone, and style guidelines on your corporate blog.
Five principles to guide any government IT effort
3 min read
Nearly three years later, the founding principles of project MyGov remain valid guideposts for any reform effort in government.
The Zen of GitHub
3 min read
Call it taste, culture, or zen. Every organization has shared assumptions that guide decisions and resolve ambiguity in pursuit of its mission.
Speak like a human: 12 ways tech companies can write less-corporate blog posts
11 min read
Your users don't care how excited you are about your new feature. Twelve rules for writing corporate blog posts that sound human.
Open procurement: procurement in an increasingly open source world
7 min read
Government agencies should buy pull requests that fix specific issues, not generic developer hours. Treat contractors as contributors.
Merge by committee
7 min read
Reviewing pull requests in weekly committee meetings kills open source projects. Decentralize governance and reduce information imbalance.
Using GitHub Pages to showcase your organization's open source efforts
7 min read
A step-by-step guide to creating a branded, customizable developer portal for your organization's open source projects using GitHub Pages and Jekyll.
Copyright notices for open source projects
8 min read
Who holds the copyright? What year do you use? Do you even need a notice? Everything you need to know about open source copyright.
Analysis of federal .gov domains, 2015 edition
3 min read
A data-driven look at federal .gov domains: one in four support HTTPS, one in ten enforce it, 87% have no detectable CMS, and dozens still run decade-old servers.
Eight lessons learned hacking on GitHub Pages for six months (external link)
1 min read
Eight lessons from scaling GitHub Pages from a 100-line shell script to a full OAuth app handling 250K requests per minute.
19 reasons why technologists don't want to work at your government agency
15 min read
Government agencies struggle to attract developers due to outdated tools, distrusted employees, and a culture that optimizes for process over innovation.
Five best practices in open source: external engagement
14 min read
Publishing code isn't enough. Open source means building communities. Five best practices for engaging contributors and growing your project.
Five best practices in open source: internal collaboration
9 min read
You can't foster open source publicly while running a closed-source culture internally. Five best practices for internal collaboration.
Explain like I'm five: Jekyll collections
7 min read
Jekyll collections extend posts and pages to support non-dated but related content, like team members, products, or recipes.
Why your agency's first open source project is going to be a flop
6 min read
Your agency's first open source project is set up to fail. Start small and build organizational muscle memory before going public.
Diff (and collaborate on) Microsoft Word documents using GitHub
4 min read
Word Diff automatically converts Word documents to Markdown when you commit to GitHub, so they can be diffed, versioned, and collaborated on like code.
What does your organization optimize for?
4 min read
Every organization is optimized for one thing. A glance at someone's laptop stickers reveals whether yours optimizes for people or process.
The fine print nobody reads: what to do so government can use your service
8 min read
Government agencies can't agree to your standard terms of service. Here's why, and how to negotiate federal-compatible TOS.
Hacking GitHub: 14 simple tools to help introduce open source to the uninitiated
3 min read
14 open source apps I built to help non-technical users collaborate on GitHub, from Word-to-Markdown conversion to simplified issue forms.
Why you should care about HTTPS, even if you have nothing to hide
4 min read
HTTPS protects more than passwords and credit cards. It prevents censorship by making selective content blocking impossible.
2014 (21 posts)
Geeks and suits
7 min read
In government IT, change depends on geeks and suits. Yet despite being in an industry built on communication, they rarely talk.
The myth of government IT
5 min read
Government IT is held back less by law than by myth: decade-old assumptions about technology that calcified into policy.
15 rules for communicating at GitHub
15 min read
How GitHub used issues and chat for async communication: fifteen rules that eliminate the 'you had to be there' problem in corporate workflows.
What is a Government Evangelist?
3 min read
What a GitHub Government Evangelist does: help agencies ship software better and bring Silicon Valley practices to Washington.
What's next for federal IT policy, IMHO
3 min read
Federal IT policy needs to move past cold-war-era workflows and alphabet-soup compliance toward a culture of openness.
Eight reasons why government contractors should embrace open source software
8 min read
Eight reasons government contractors should embrace open source, from free advertising and better code to attracting top talent.
Everything a government attorney needs to know about open source software licensing
10 min read
What government lawyers need to know about open source licensing, from MIT to GPL, and from consuming code to accepting contributions.
If you liked it then you should have put a URL on it
7 min read
Every decision deserves its own URL, one that captures what was decided, who made the call, and why. Give your content a permanent home.
Disclosed source is not the same as open source
3 min read
Publishing code without fostering community is disclosed source, not open source. True open source is a two-way relationship.
Our code deserves better
5 min read
Government delivers multi-million dollar software projects on CD-ROMs in triplicate. Modern development practices demand better.
Open source is (not) insecure
5 min read
Open source software isn't inherently less secure than proprietary alternatives. That myth stems from fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD).
Three things you learn going from the most bureaucratic organization in the world to the least
7 min read
Three lessons from moving from the federal government to GitHub: trust, happiness, and treating relationships as assets.
Why isn't all government software open source?
8 min read
From enterprise FUD to closed-source contractors to a culture of no, an entire value chain keeps taxpayer-funded code behind the firewall.
Why FedRAMP actually makes it harder for government agencies to move to the cloud
10 min read
FedRAMP was supposed to make cloud adoption easier for federal agencies. Instead, it's making it harder to keep pace with the private sector.
Analysis of Federal Executive .govs (Part Deux)
3 min read
Revisiting 1,229 federal .gov domains three years later to measure SSL, IPv6, CMS adoption, and open data compliance. The results are decidedly mixed.
How to identify a strong open source project
5 min read
How to evaluate an open source project's health (update frequency, issues, community, and docs) before you depend on it.
Open government is so '08, or why collaborative government is the next big thing
6 min read
Technology enables government to move beyond transparency to true collaboration. Here's why that shift matters.
Word versus Markdown: more than mere semantics
4 min read
How we consume content has changed dramatically, yet how we author it hasn't. Markdown forces you to write for the web.
Want to innovate government? Focus on culture
7 min read
Parachuting technologists into agencies isn't enough. Government innovation requires building a culture that values technology.
Header hover anchor links on GitHub Pages using Jekyll
2 min read
Add GitHub-style hover anchor links to your Jekyll headings with CSS and JavaScript so readers can deep-link to any section.
Open source, not just software anymore
8 min read
Open source has always been about the right to modify, not contribute. As those workflows spread beyond software, we may need a new word.
2013 (15 posts)
Why no one uses your government data
3 min read
Next time you publish a data source, ask one question: how can you optimize the experience for the data consumer?
That's not how the internet works
7 min read
Stop publishing monolithic datasets. Treat your GitHub repo like a RESTful API: granular, URL-addressable, and optimized for consumers.
Jekyll: Where content is truly king
2 min read
Choosing Jekyll over a traditional CMS for government.github.com freed us to spend six months iterating on what mattered most: the content.
Ten Things You Learn as a Presidential Innovation Fellow
8 min read
The challenges we faced were overwhelmingly administrative, cultural, and bureaucratic in nature. Here are 10 things I know now I wish I had known then.
Treat Data as Code
5 min read
Developers learned decades ago that version control and collaboration are essential. It's time we apply those same practices to data.
Friction
5 min read
Friction, the time between wanting to contribute and actually contributing, is the only metric that matters for open source.
Everyone Contributes
3 min read
Code is just one way to contribute to open source. Projects thrive when they create clear paths for non-technical contributors to participate.
Bet on the little guy
3 min read
On the internet, simple and open formats always win. From HTTP to JSON to Markdown, the lightweight underdog consistently beats its proprietary rival.
The technology's the easy part
6 min read
In government IT, technology is never the hard part. Culture is. Stop building new tools and start sustaining the ones you already have.
How to convert Shapefiles to GeoJSON maps for use on GitHub (and why you should)
3 min read
A step-by-step guide to converting ESRI Shapefiles to GeoJSON for rendering as interactive maps on GitHub, plus why open formats matter for public data.
An open letter to government CIOs
3 min read
Government CIOs don't need bigger budgets or more staff. They need to build lean, iterate quickly, and embrace open source as a way of working.
We've Been Selling Open Source Wrong
4 min read
Demanding agencies release code misses the point. Open source is a culture and workflow, not a deliverable. Fix the process and the code follows.
The store that sells only one thing.
3 min read
Tech consultants who define themselves by a single language or framework are like a store that sells one product. Customers bring problems, not solutions.
The next big thing is already here
2 min read
Want to predict the next technology trend? Look at how open source developers work. The tools they build for themselves today become mainstream tomorrow.
What is a 'Hacker'?
5 min read
In DC, 'hacker' is a dirty word. But the hacker ethic (sharing, openness, decentralization) is the mindset government needs to solve hard problems.
2012 (10 posts)
Deprecate Management
5 min read
Open source communities ship code across geographies and timezones without managers. Their collaborative practices have lessons for all of us.
We've been trained to make paper
5 min read
If the internet is the primary medium by which content is consumed, shouldn't that be the primary medium for which content is prepared?
Open Source is not a verb
4 min read
Open source, at its core, is actually not about code, but about connecting people around a shared vision to encourage collaborative problem solving.
Government's Release of Federally Funded Source Code: Public Domain or Open Source? Yes.
3 min read
The question isn't whether government code should be public domain or open source. It's how the open source community can help agencies get there.
The Demise of the Personal Dashboard
5 min read
Google retired iGoogle. Startups favor activity feeds and minimal interfaces. The drag-and-drop dashboard era is over, and simplicity is the new default.
Why You Should Always Write Software as Open Source, Even When It's Never Going to Be
4 min read
When nobody will see your code, you cut corners. Writing as if it were open source produces more flexible, modular, and maintainable software from day one.
Publishing Government Data That Developers Will Actually Use
6 min read
Publishing government data isn't as simple as pressing publish. Ten steps to building APIs and ecosystems developers actually use.
Enterprise Open Source Usage Is Up, But Challenges Remain (external link)
1 min read
80% of enterprises use open source, two-thirds contribute code upstream, and one in four have a detrimental open source policy.
CFPB Accepts First Citizen-Submitted Code on Behalf of Federal Government
3 min read
CFPB accepted the first citizen-submitted pull request in federal government history: a two-word typo fix that set a historic precedent.
PHP is Insecure (and Other Enterprise Open-Source F.U.D.)
4 min read
PHP's bad security reputation in government and enterprise is largely FUD, outdated assumptions, and confusing popularity with vulnerability.
2011 (3 posts)
Federal Agility: a Cultural Solution to a Technical Problem
9 min read
Government's biggest IT challenge isn't technology, it's culture. Agile adoption requires rethinking risk aversion, incentives, and rigid waterfall habits.
Why Digital Talent Doesn't Want To Work At Your Company
3 min read
Top tech talent doesn't need perks or a Silicon Valley zip code. They want the chance to change the world, and your bureaucracy is standing in the way.
Enterprise, Open Source, and Why Better is not Enough
5 min read
Open source won't win the enterprise by being better. The community must match proprietary software's polish and professionalism to be taken seriously.