Richard Arneson – Richard Arneson's Thunkingspot

Everything I Needed To Know About AI, I Learned From Steinbeck

By Richard Arneson | March 9, 2026March 9, 2026 by Richard Arneson

I haven’t lost any sleep pondering the more philosophical dimension of AI, until now. Recent breakout advancements have forced me to reexamine assumptions and fine tune where I stand… and I will admit – lose a little sleep. When I started digging deeper into AI coding assist over a year ago, I was impressed, but not so impressed as to activate my fight-or-flight response. And then life happened, distracting me at the decisive moment, as…

The Third Wish

By Richard Arneson | May 4, 2024March 14, 2025 by Richard Arneson

This video of a star cluster simulation was not generated by an AI. I mean… it could have been I suppose but that wasn’t really what I wanted to learn about. It was generated by an application I wrote while making use of a few different AI code assist tools. What are you looking at? 1000 Stars in the cluster. Random distribution of spectral type, mass and position. Random initial velocities constrained to provide a…

Software Engineering

Death Of The Team?

By Richard Arneson | March 13, 2024March 13, 2024 by Richard Arneson

Boss: “We need something done… really soon.” Me: “How important is it?”. Boss: “Really, really important.” Me: “Important enough that everyone needed to get it done can be given the freedom to make it their unambiguous priority?” Boss: “…” Me (eyebrows engaged): “…?” Boss: “Tell me what that looks like.” Have you ever worked on a team that was so productive you felt energized about work? Don’t feel bad if the answer is “no”. Maybe instead of trying to improve morale…

Software Engineering

About Tweetle Beetles – Part II

By Richard Arneson | January 27, 2024January 30, 2024 by Richard Arneson

We left Part I with two questions on the table: Another swing at a quantitative approach I’m not ready to give up on a quantitative assessment of tech debt, so let’s take another swing. I really do think it’s that important. So here is how I propose we think about technical debt. A healthy technology stack is one that is generating revenue sufficient to pay for its operational cost and the incremental cost of forward…

Software Engineering

About Tweetle Beetles – Part I

By Richard Arneson | January 25, 2024January 27, 2024 by Richard Arneson

Let’s have a little talk about tweetle beetles. What do you know about tweetle beetles? Well… Dr. Seuss, Fox In Socks Someone clever once said engineering is doing for a dime what any fool can do for a dollar. That speaks to the over-constrained nature of almost all business ventures. Another way to state this is that we generally are struggling even to come close to building a desired good for a cost that can barely…

Software Engineering

Write DONE Criteria Like It Matters

By Richard Arneson | January 7, 2024January 27, 2024 by Richard Arneson

One of the things I like about freelancing is the clarifying moments it often provides. One of those has to do with the concept of “billable hours”. We generally understand that when you are being paid a salary you add value beyond the time you spend in front of a screen. That said I do find that when charging by the hour it tends to focus my effort to make sure every billed hour is…

Software Engineering

How To Risk-Manage Your Way Through Almost Anything

By Richard Arneson | May 8, 2023January 27, 2024 by Richard Arneson

Or, why does everything always suck so bad? One of the most frequent (and most serious) frustrations I encounter among direct reports and peers is expressed as some variation of “why don’t we ever have time to do things right?” What makes this ironic is that I don’t think any executive ever got up one day and decided they wanted their company to build a steaming pile. Ok – there is considerable evidence to the…

Software Engineering

Duration Mismatch In Code

By Richard Arneson | April 28, 2023January 27, 2024 by Richard Arneson

Yes, this is an article about software engineering. No, I am not talking about the Silicon Valley Bank failure… Or am I? Duration mismatch is the difference in time to maturity between a company’s assets and liabilities. (Also note the adjacent concepts of duration risk and duration gap if you’re the sort who wants to dig deeper.) We already use the financial analogy of tech debt in software. It seems only reasonable we might want…

Software Engineering

Constraints Are Your Job

By Richard Arneson | April 28, 2023April 28, 2023 by Richard Arneson

Ever feel like everything you are trying to do would be so much easier if it weren’t for all the constraints? Ever think maybe that’s a good thing? I didn’t think so. We tend to think of constraints as the problem. And let’s face it, there is a level of constraint that basically translates into “game over”. But under normal circumstances managing constraints is not getting in the way of doing your job, it is…

Software Engineering

The Other Code Smell – Rot

By Richard Arneson | April 28, 2023May 8, 2023 by Richard Arneson

Code Rot conjures up images from sci-fi more than something to be seriously concerned about. Rot or decay implies a loss of integrity, a loss of capability or suitability for the intended purpose, succumbing to pathogens, all accompanied by a bad smell. Since all these things can be observed in software systems, if somewhat metaphorically, rot would seem to be an apt description. Software rot is driven by the changes we make (internal factors) and…