Bulletin 20 May. On principles, in principle...

Well, hello again (from a new host, and after a goodly while. Glad to be back, let's to it).

I do like principles. Over the years I have spent my time looking for patterns in structures, in processes, in behaviour. To be fair, I can’t help myself — as a kid I used to do it with wallpaper, or the light shapes cars made as they passed (didn’t we all, before TV begat the wealth of multimedia channels we have today). From time to time, I’ve written them down — back in the late Nineties, for example, I documented how all software lifecycles could be defined as lines, V’s and loops. Who knew?

Anyway I’ve collected a few of them, some adopted or borrowed, some epiphanies, some emerging from solving a tricky problem. I reckon I have another ten years in this game, one way or another, so now’s a good time to start distilling them down, making sense of them — if others can learn from my a-ha moments (and mistakes) then, great.

Here’s my current top seven from a tech perspective, and more broadly:

1. Orientation before action — know where you are, before deciding what to do. A very personal one, this.
2. Align with complexity — we’re not going to fix (or even understand) it all, and we can’t pretend it’s not there.
3. Plan forwards, map backwards — a corollary, as well as reflecting the first habit: start with the end in mind.
4. Architect not too large or too small — Goldilocks got it right, particularly when it comes to structure, data and process.
5. Deliver often and early — getting stuff done is about divide and conquer, and then get something out there.
6. Manage everything as a service — so powerful, this, as it enables traceability. As true for restaurants as applications.
7. Recognise value above all — ultimately, success comes when benefits outweigh costs, the fundamental equation.

I don’t know whether these will distil down to three, or whether I will end up with hundreds, time will tell (speaking of time, that has to be a principle in itself: I am increasingly convinced it is the most valuable commodity we possess). But it’s a good set for now. I fed them into Larry the LLM and asked what they shared: intention, it said, which was a pretty good answer. Not mine, I was thinking balance, but “intentional equilibrium” has a ring to it.

I don’t know where this is going, perhaps this will just be the latest sporadic bulletin from the steppes of rural England. Still, it’s now coming from a new, self-hosted web site, where I have collated the (literally) thousands of posts I’ve written over the years, as well as books, poetry and everything else. Thank you for sticking with it, and we’ll see what the next few years hold.

Cheers, Jon