We often consider software engineering as one discipline, but I think foundational and application software are almost two different worlds.

I had the pleasure of giving my talk on _the Power of Simplicity, Crafting durable software systems_ at [DevOpsDays Zürich 2025](https://www.devopsdays.ch/) today (in Winterthur - of course), and enjoyed it very much.

Discussions about whether we should use Artifical Intelligence helpers for creative work remind me of musician's unions attempting to ban synthesizers and drum machines, back in the early eighties, as told by the articles linked at the end of this post.

It'll soon be 25 years since I started collaborating via mailing lists in open source communities.

Speaking (in French) at the Very Tech Trip conference in Paris in February was nice!

We often consider software engineering as one discipline, but I think foundational and application software are almost two different worlds.

I had the pleasure of giving my talk on _the Power of Simplicity, Crafting durable software systems_ at [DevOpsDays Zürich 2025](https://www.devopsdays.ch/) today (in Winterthur - of course), and enjoyed it very much.

Discussions about whether we should use Artifical Intelligence helpers for creative work remind me of musician's unions attempting to ban synthesizers and drum machines, back in the early eighties, as told by the articles linked at the end of this post.

It'll soon be 25 years since I started collaborating via mailing lists in open source communities.

I don't know about you but I've been having a hard time getting accepted for speaking at Devoxx conferences.

Speaking (in French) at the Very Tech Trip conference in Paris in February was nice!

Speaking of Web Components, this script lists the [custom elements](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Web_Components/Using_custom_elements) registered on a browser's current page.

Youngsters who might be interested in doing an apprenticeship with us were in the office this week, and I spent an afternoon teaching them the basics of programming.

Generative AI is great - but we shouldn't believe everything it tells us.

This is mostly a _notes to self_ post, about something that I rarely do and that has become much easier than what I remembered.

This being the year of COVID-19, many of us are recording videos for online conferences. While I cannot claim to be a professional video producer, by far, I _did_ work for a video studio during my studies (a long time ago - Betacam days, yes)

The below message is from 2000 but I think it still applies to open source collaboration in the 21st century. I wasn't part of the Apache Jakarta story myself but have heard of that a few times over the years...

As open source comes of age and becomes mainstream, more and more job postings include "open source skills" in their requirements. But do you really want to hire someone who spends their time exchanging flames with members of their own community in public forums? Someone who greets newcomers with "I have forwarded your question to /dev/null, thanks" and other RTFM answers?

I'm amazed at how many so-called "enterprise software systems" do not embrace the Web model in 2010, making them way much harder and much less fun to use than they should be. I have recently started making parallels between this and music teachers, and the analogy seems to work. Don't ask where the parallel comes from...weird connections in my brain I guess.

I originally published this article on SD Times, republishing it to keep it around for posterity... If you’re looking at embracing open source today, you might be a bit late to the game. Using open-source software is mainstream now, and being involved in open-source projects is nothing to write home about either. Everybody does it, we know how it works, its value is proven.

> How would you feel if you had to regularly expense $1200 so you could “tell a few teammates something”. Think that would go over well? (Jason Fried)

Here’s a “survival guide” that we use at Adobe to help our colleagues make sense of our busy Open Development mailing lists.

My current Fiat Punto Sport is the second Diesel car that I own, and I love those engines. Very smooth yet quite powerful acceleration, good fuel savings, a discount on state taxes thanks to low pollution, and it's very reliable and durable. And fun to drive. How often does Grandma go "wow" when you put the throttle down in your car? That happens here, and that Grandma is not usually a car freak.

French-speaking fortysomethings might remember the Shadoks, a two-minute TV comics show that aired on ORTF when I was a kid.

While waiting for the soup to be ready and for the guests to arrive, let me wish all of my readership (yes, both of you guys) a Merry Christmas!