Tag Archive

How To Write Functional Specs

Thursday, March 12th, 2020
How To Write Functional Specs

We’re assuming here that you’re already conceptually on board with writing specs. If you’re skeptical, Joel Spolsky will set you straight! Here’s my own mini-pitch for specs: Writing... »

Dogfood Binge

Thursday, October 10th, 2019
Dogfood Binge

nomnomnom Imagine how good a manufacturer of dogfood would have to think their dogfood is to eat it themselves! When a company uses the thing they make, especially as part of running the company, it’s called dogfooding. We’ve been dogfooding Beeminder like maniacs for years, and paying users when we derail... »

Pareto Dominating The Pledge Cap UI For Goal Creation

Friday, August 9th, 2019
Pareto Dominating The Pledge Cap UI For Goal Creation

This is part 3 of a 3-part blog series! Previously we defined Pareto dominance and what that means for software, and then we made our case for and committed to the »

The Pareto Dominance Principle for Apps and Websites

Tuesday, July 30th, 2019
The Pareto Dominance Principle for Apps and Websites

This is part 2 in a 3-part series. Part 1 defined Pareto dominance and Pareto-efficient software.   I have some advice that now feels (to me, subjectively) too... »

Startups Not Eating Each Other Like Cannibalistic Dogs

Saturday, May 18th, 2019
Startups Not Eating Each Other Like Cannibalistic Dogs

Huge thanks to Malcolm Ocean, Christina Willner, and »

How You Talk Yourself Out Of Reporting A Bug

Wednesday, May 1st, 2019
How You Talk Yourself Out Of Reporting A Bug

It’s funny how universal it is for users (including programmers, including myself) to gravitate so strongly to “it’s probably just me / my crappy phone / my timezone / me not reading the webcopy / me not being deserving of love or working software / etc”. It might be an impulse to be kind and not... »

Quantified Self Talk: Tracking My Personal Reliability

Friday, April 12th, 2019
Quantified Self Talk: Tracking My Personal Reliability

On 2018-09-22 I gave a talk at the Quantified Self conference. This is that talk. You can also see an actual recording of it. I got a lot of encouragement afterwards... »

Accountability Partners and Soft Accountability

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2019
Accountability Partners and Soft Accountability

Malcolm Ocean has been on both sides of the accountability relationship. Among the many roles he’s played is professional accountability provider: initially as Beeminder’s beekeeper, and now also independently with people who use his... »

Beeminder ♥ Clozemaster

Thursday, November 29th, 2018
Beeminder ♥ Clozemaster

We’re excited to officially announce our newest integration partner: Clozemaster! We’ve even got the Clozemaster folks themselves here guest-blogging for us to tell you what Clozemaster... »

Slytherin 404 Errors

Thursday, July 19th, 2018
Slytherin 404 Errors

UPDATE for webdev nerds: We realized we meant “403 Forbidden” rather than “401 Not Authorized”. Here’s a little information leak we noticed and fixed some months (ok, the better part of a year — blush!) after we publicly launched in late 2011: Say our user Alice has two goals. One is her book reading... »

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