Exploring Existence
Exploring Existence
Roy Straub
I love to write, either on my blog, or in my journals. If I'm not writing, I'm probably reading. If I'm not reading, I'm probably brewing coffee—preferably artisanally as a pour-over. I have a soft spot for craftsmanship and skills that demand it. I write small to medium sized essays about topics such as reading, writing, thought and self-improvement, as well as programming, and philosophy. As long as it sparks something in me I'll write about it.
Latest Posts
I recently completed my second reading of The Staff Engineer's Path by Tanya Reilly. This is my attempt to linger on my reading, as I posted earlier. It's not a review but a reflection on how the book affected me. When I first read the...
I’ve decided: I’m never returning to software consultancy again. After nearly a decade in consultancy, I recently took my first in-house software engineering position. How do those roles differ? Why do I prefer my current position? First...
I just read my second book this year, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time. As I closed the book, I had all kinds of thoughts about it, as I usually do. Normally, I’d ignore them and move on, but I want to change that. One of my...
Dogs are called man’s best friend for their loyalty, emotional support, and obedience. My dog Loki is none of those. But what he might lack in those areas, he makes up for in others. Unintentionally, he is not only my companion but an...
I recently read this thought-provoking piece by Sean Goedecke about how there are two types of software engineering: pure and impure. In short, Goedecke argues, the pure kind is driven by a sense of aesthetics, like art or research,...
I’m an avid reader—it’s the hobby I spend the most time on. As my hobby developed, I started keeping two lists: a to-read list and a read list. The former to track books I want to read, the latter to record what I have read. Both sound...
I’ve been wanting to write for a long time but keep shutting myself down for many reasons, one of which is not acting on momentum. There are times when I can get really excited about something, particularly when I’m hit by a new insight....
I’m coming up on five years of blogging in one form or another, after which you’d think I’d have the hang of it, right? Not really. I’m still confronted with crippling doubts every time I sit down to write, wondering: Is it good enough?...
Five years ago I started blogging. I ran a Jekyll site, tried Medium, Dev.to and finally settled on Substack a few years ago. Recent insights made me reconsider—I’ve come full circle, back to a static site. Why? Because of the values of...
We live in an age where we are exposed to an incredible amount of information. Despite unprecedented access to information, I’d argue there's a dark side: we’re losing touch with our own thoughts. I believe the lack of space to think is...
Good. Bad. Right. Wrong. This. That. People love binary oppositions, and Software Engineering is full of them. One such opposition is the discussion of object-oriented vs functional programming. However, I’d argue it doesn’t have to be...
Even though I’ve been programming for almost 15 years, I recently realized that I hardly write any programs for personal goals. In university I programmed to get my degree, feeling somewhat indifferent about it. Then, after making it my...
Recently, I read an article by Kent Beck over on Substack, in which he presented a 'Thinkie'—a small mind-opening idea—called Naive Solution. His idea is that if you're stuck, it can be valuable to pose the question: Why is this any more...
Software is an intriguing discipline, and one of its most captivating aspects is how small events have humongous consequences. A recent exercise in refactoring at one of my projects showed me how seemingly tiny changes could trigger huge...