Conor's Newsletter: Issue 41
Storing data, leaky abstractions in A/B testing, and detecting intelligence
Let's get to the stories and links that I thought were worth sharing this week. As always, enjoy the newsletter. If this was forwarded to you, you can go ahead and subscribe at conordewey.com.
What I read —
You’re writing software that processes data, and it works fine when you test it on a small sample file. But when you load the real data, your program crashes. What do you do? Start with this excellent introduction to storing data. When Your Data Doesn't Fit in Memory.
When details of implementation inadvertently surface, bad things tend to happen. This post from Booking.com explores this problem in the context of online A/B testing platforms. Leaky Abstractions In Online Experimentation Platforms.
"This is a special case of Chesterton’s Fence, which states you should never take down a fence before knowing why it was put up. Here, I propose Scott’s Law: never put order in a system before you understand the structure underneath its chaos." The Efficiency-Destroying Magic of Tidying Up.
I enjoyed this post outlining some deep thinking practices for design. All of these strategies are widely applicable in all fields. Better Design With Deep Thinking.
What I found interesting —
This was a quick bookmark from me. There are too many helpful code snippets for one sitting here. 30 Seconds of Code.
This thread on Hacker News kept my attention throughout the week. I'm fascinated by the diversity of all of these companies and their BI stacks. BI Stack Discussion.
I like this take a lot. Don't underestimate the power of continuous probing for more info. Detecting Intelligence.
Quote I'm pondering —
"If you get an unexpected answer to a question and it doesn’t affect what you’re doing, it wasn’t a terribly important question to begin with.” — Rob Fitzpatrick