Nano-Blog : August 10, 2025

Nano-Blog for the week of August 10, 2025.

§ August 15, 2025

The Coming Software Apocalypse

Nearly a decade ago, James Somers, wrote an article for The Atlantic about how software bugs scale in relationship to system complexity. The article, The Coming Software Apocalypse, despite being 8 years old, doesn't seem that dated. Written before AI went mainstream, it focuses on how (at a high level) difficult bugs creep into software systems and proposes a few ideas luminaries in our industry are proposing.

Written for a general audience, programmers will find it lacks specific details like "where can I download these tools?" or "how do I implement these ideas in my emacs-focused workflow?" But it's still worth reading as an overview, a warning and a demonstration we're still in the software crisis.

P.S. - James also maintains a list of items he's written for mainstream publications and books he's read. It's equal parts self-promotion and a travelogue for literary odyssey. Would that more people would have the presence of mind to share such things.

#James-Somers #papers #The-Atlantic

§ August 14, 2025

Inventing on Principle

Bret Victor is known for many things. The worrydream.com website (with it's excellent list of seminal papers) and DynamicLand spring immediately to mind. But he's also known for delivering a very good presentation about a better future for software designers. The talk from 2012 is available on YouTube:

Worth a watch by anyone curious about how we may think about software and it's development.

#Bret-Victor #design #video