Anecdotes

Conventional wisdom that fails for IT

I’ve done several posts featuring what I call “Peterisms”, which are basically aphorisms I’ve adopted that encapsulate hard-earned IT lessons. Let’s turn it around this time, and talk about two sayings that sound equally folksy-sensible, and that I hear again and again, but which I feel are actually dangerous to apply to information technology work. [...]

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Some timeless IT/tech jokes, and why they’re still relevant

If you’ve been in the information technology industry for a number of years, certain jokes tend to pop up again and again. Why? I’d say it’s because their underlying premises, the things that make them applicable and funny, continue to occur. So even if you’ve heard these before (and that’s probably the case), it’s worth [...]

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A case study of “going to the cloud” (SaaS)

Here’s one series of questions that’s great to ask a candidate for a senior position in IT, be it in project management, development, operations, or whatever: Tell me about a recent project or initiative for which you were responsible. What was the goal, and how did you ensure that the goal was achieved? What were [...]

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“Hot stove” lessons, part II: development and operations

I noted last time, once again, that “IT is hard. In fact, it’s so hard that it seems most people have to learn certain core lessons by themselves.  It seems like everyone needs to burn his or her own hand on the hot stove.”  I went through some examples of this sort of “hot stove” lessons particular [...]

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“Hot stove” lessons in IT, part I

Regular readers here have certainly noticed the recurring nature of many of my posts: “things about IT that should be obvious, but clearly aren’t.”  Each week, as I set about writing on my chosen topic, it often strikes me that what I have to say is anything but new or radical; rather, it seems to [...]

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More astounding IT utterances

A few months back, I wrote a post on various “Astounding Sayings” that I’ve encountered in my career in information technology.  It turns out that it’s been one of the more popular posts I’ve written, judging from page views, so in true Hollywood fashion, it must be time for a sequel.  I am retitling it [...]

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“Astounding IT sayings”: the inaugural post

I haven’t given myself the luxury of telling an IT anecdote or two here recently, so it’s about time: here are two, with moral-of-the-story observations for each.  Note: these are true stories.  I may have changed some of the facts, lightly, to make them less identifiable.  They’re also always at least several years in the [...]

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