Oh, so now it's fine to have a war on Christmas

"I’ve seen things in bounded space" (suno.com/s/s126xbKu0s...) is the soundtrack of our "the DDD Horror Picture Show" talk with @paulinejamin.bsky.social Next and final performance at @newcrafts.bsky.social Paris next week. See you there.

Hear, hear!

The quote "All models are wrong but some are useful" should not be read as an excuse to stick with your model. It's a call to actively search for more useful models.

Our annual patterns conference (PLoP) is Oct 12-15. We're opening up Sunday for 1/2 day workshops. $100 for workshop + dinner. Choices: Architecture & Application Modernization Patterns or Fearless Change Patterns and using them to create organizational change ti.to/hillside/plo... Join us!

Video taken one hour ago outside the Portland ICE facility of the violent insurrectionists in question

I love this! All projects should have to provide documentary evidence of the remaining mess when the project is officially done. mastodon.social/@cmconseils/...

We're celebrating 1 trillion webpages archived in the Wayback Machine on October 22 🎉 We want to hear from you: Why is the Wayback Machine important to YOU? Make a short video & share it with hashtag #Wayback1T 🤳 Let's celebrate a trillion memories together. INFO ➡️ blog.archive.org/2025/09/23/

“Every model makes a choice about what is important, what categories we classify things in, what we see, what’s invisible, what’s valued, or even what’s valid.“ — @rebeccawb.bsky.social and @mathiasverraes.bsky.social from the paper we’re discussing on Monday, Oct 6 👇

Domain-Driven Design London's next event is 𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟗𝐭𝐡, 𝐢𝐧-𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 in London! @icooper.bsky.social will be presenting 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲-𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝. Grab your tickets here: dddlondon.com/events/responsibility-driven-design/

I hope you can join the Fearless Change Campfire free virtual event on Oct 3, 9 a.m. EDT. Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising will host this event...with a lot of story telling and sharing of how people have made changes in their organizations. I'm going, just to hear others' wisdom!

"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?" Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.

This year marks the 32nd year of the PLoP conference held in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge at Skamania Lodge. Spark your creativity. Satisfy your itch to explore the potential of patterns. Submit a proposal for an Imagination Run Wild session. Feel free to ask me Qs See: plopcon.org/plop2025/

I’m doing a thing! I don’t think the problem with Democrats is our policies, or that some of us are trans. It’s that too many Democrats are desperate to be liked by people they look down on. I don’t look down on baristas: I was one. I hope to be of service again.

I'm looking forward to DDD Europe next week! I'm leading a hands-on workshop, Expanding Your Design Heuristics one Experiment at a Time... where we'll be designing experiments and learning about sharing/collecting our design heuristics. 2025.dddeurope.com

I'm excited to be running a brand new ✨ hands-on 🙌 workshop at @dddeu.bsky.social in a week's time! Join me for 2 hours of design as we explore a problem. What is design? I'll tell you via the #ACEDmodel #software #softwareDesign #softwareDevelopment #softwareArchitecture #softwareEngineering

The 5 stages of grieving, UK edition

Knowledge of the complex systems we work within, and design-evolve, is distributed. Acting that impacts the system, is too. We will explore how we can shape and evolve our systems -- as systems: buff.ly/cFlCFsn

It’s a wonderful conference that has fostered a vibrant learning community around software design practice. It’s a Good Thing to support and sponsor:

Having some critical thoughts about using AI to enhance your user story descriptions. Because I thought that the whole point was to have conversations, not generate text so my Jira tickets are fuller. #gtd

Once again, Pattern Languages of Programs, People, and Practices (PLoP), will be@Skamania Lodge, in the Columbia River Gorge Oct 12-15. See: plopcon.org/plop2025/ We're committed to improving quality of life by designing&using social&echnical systems in humane, sustainable, effective ways...join us!

A cartoon reminder that it’s probably Mother’s Day tomorrow unless you are in the UK.

To argue that what's going on in US politics now is driven by greed of Republican politicians is a time-wasting blunder. What's going on now is State Capture. It's not that uncommon. We have to understand the enemy if we're going to fight it successfully. melconway.com/Home/pdf/Cap...

I don't like to shame, but if you're still actively using Twitter, the best time to stop was when Musk took over; the second best time is now.

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

55 years ago, 20M marched for the first #EarthDay, fueled by this photo of Earth from space. They won the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the EPA. Now, those protections are being undone. The planet is more tattered now—but still sublime. Still worth fighting for. #EarthDay2025 #ClimateAction

In wirfs-brock.com/rebecca/blog... we presented the story of the TaxGlobe company as a series of signals. We invited you, the reader, to consider how you would react. Here are the responses of Avraham Poupko, Xin Yao, and Michael Keeling, three experienced architects: wirfs-brock.com/rebecca/blog...

Here is the latest essay in our book, Design and Reality. Critical Software Redesign: Creating the Environment for Large Scale Change wirfs-brock.com/rebecca/blog... Thanks @mathiasverraes.bsky.social for the many conversations that went into writing this with you!

Two papers of note that are pretty obscure are "What it Takes to Really Handle Exceptional Conditions" wirfs-brock.com/rebecca/pape... and "Object-Oriented Frameworks" written for the American Programmer in 1991 wirfs-brock.com/rebecca/pape... (had to hand scan in the pages as it wasn't online)

For those history buffs... Today I just published some of my original papers on responsibility-driven design, object-oriented frameworks, oo research, handling exceptions in Use Cases, and color Smalltalk. See: wirfs-brock.com/rebecca/pape... (scroll down towards the bottom)...

Stand for what you believe in

New blog post: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/04/06/m...

I take a closer look at object design&object analysis' roots in my latest blog post, Object design and analysis methods before and after UML: wirfs-brock.com/rebecca/blog... If you have any points you'd like me to add to this history, or any questions, please feel free to start a conversation.

And for a web-friendly version see wirfs-brock.com/rebecca/pape...

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is being decimated right now. Mass layoffs happening across agencies (NIH, FDA, CDC etc). Some employees found out by security badge being denied. Others got email. Line outside Health Resources and Services Administration this AM shared with me:

Ah... those were the days! Object technology was in its prime-not passe, people wanted common ways describe their designs, and...well, we were worried what the future might bring. It's new for me to write and reflect on what the world was like then. Let me know what you think of my look backwards.

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock @rebeccawb A blog post reflecting on the OOPSLA 1997!!! Panel where we discussed the dangers and benefits of that shiny new modeling language UML ... see wirfs-brock.com/rebecca/blog... The original report can be found here: wirfs-brock.com/rebecca/pape...

"Calling buy() when there’s not enough stock is a programming error, not a user error. The remedy for that isn’t an 'Oops, something went wrong!' message. The remedy for programming errors is to take more care over programming." codemanship.wordpress.com/2025/03/28/t...

Totally agree that a quality focus fits with agile practices. And if you are looking for inspiration about some quality-related agile practices and patterns, consider checking out wirfs-brock.com/rebecca/coll...

Yesterday, I fondly remembered my dear friend Leonard Nimoy, who would have turned 94. His legacy lives on in our hearts. Just days ago, Bill Shatner celebrated his 94th birthday — wishing him continued health and happiness. Live long and prosper, my friends.

On the left: Hegseth's message. On the right: the applicable CENTCOM classification guide provisions. This is all very plainly classified at the SECRET level. They all lied. They should all lose their jobs.

When I worked at NATO, benign details about war game *simulations* were classified, much less particulars about actual attacks. The idea that this info wouldn't have been classified is a total fantasy (and an outright lie).

Pattern Languages of Programs, People & Practices plopcon.org/plop2025/

Trump claims he “brought free speech back” after removing a man from exercising his free speech. #StateOfTheUnion

Looks like tomorrow will bring votes on a Republican plan to fund tax cuts for the rich by slashing Medicaid. So this is a great time to contact your Member of Congress.

The prophet of parking open.substack.com/pub/worksinp... I particularly enjoyed insights into making lasting impacts ...

just got this email from the ACM publications (I emailed a request asking them to fix my misspelled name): Dear Rebecca Wirfs-Brock, Your request has been added to the ACM Corrections Request List. We will let you know when the request has been completed. Regards, !!I'm in the queue!~

How do I get the ACM to correct my name in a citation: dl.acm.org/action/doSea... The citation: UML (panel): the language of blueprints for software? Derek Coleman,Viktor Ohnjec, John Artim,Erick Rivas,Jim Rumbaugh,Rebecca Wirfs-Bracle I am a lifetime ACM member. Rebecca Wirfs-Bracle is not.

I had a bit of a rant brewing in my brain, triggered by seeing people still using the term "manual tester" (and I know some folks happily self-identify as that, but it's often used rather pejoratively). lisacrispin.com/2025/01/15/t...