what if you're not smart, the becquerel, Scalene, and generalists

07 Feb 2024

How to do things if you’re not that smart and don’t have any talent

Doesn’t the title say it all? Lots of good lessons in here, you just have to deal with clicking on the link and wondering what that means about your self perception.

Article: https://adaobi.substack.com/p/how-to-do-things-if-youre-not-that

Adopting the becquerel for network requests

This author says that the most suitable SI unit for network request rates is the becquerel (Bq), a unit of radioactive decay. I can’t say I’m passionate to take up this mantle but the argument that we should have a general SI unit for the rate of non-periodic events is interesting.

Article: https://two-wrongs.com/si-units-for-request-rate

Scalene

A CPU/GPU/memory profiler for Python code, with an optional (opt-in) OpenAI powered “AI-optimization suggestions” feature. The reviews seem really positive, and the README includes some benchmarks comparing it against other profilers. I haven’t used it yet but I’ll give it a whirl next time I need a profiler!

Repo: https://github.com/plasma-umass/scalene

Generalist vs specialist software developers

This author describes their experience needing to market themselves as a specialist to pick up contract software work, while actually being a generalist. Further, they think that being a generalist is what the projects often actually need, and the desire for a specialist is off-base.

…in theory all companies like adaptable people. In practice I find most job descriptions prefer specialists (source)

Article: https://ochagavia.nl/blog/the-undercover-generalist/