SocialCops’ 10 (base 10) Engineering Commandments — the values that drive everything for the #Engineering Team #InsideSocialCops 🙌

(Thread👇) Tell us if you can relate to any of these? Do you have your own values that guide your decisions? Share them with us! ⛳

0. Coder != engineer

Coders focus just on writing code to make something work. Engineers take a much wider view, focusing on both the problem and every aspect of the solution. 🤓
1. “Import lib”

It's not wise to waste time building tools or libraries if there’s already something that does the same job! Wherever possible, extend existing libraries and contribute back to the community. 💁‍♀️
2. With great power comes greater responsibility

Every choice we make on our platform and every feature we build stands up to a responsibility — helping people make more data-driven decisions and bring about real change for millions of people. 💪
3. Fail fast and keep learning

Failing fast is about doing lots of fast iterations and learning from each, rather than getting stuck on one solution or decision. 👊
4. Know thy build

Knowing your build inside and out is a crucial part of engineering. It’s not enough to know what will work and when it’ll work. It’s just as important to know what won’t work and when it won’t work. 🚧
5. #ItIsNotMagic

There is never a magical problem or a random occurrence. We expect our engineers to figure out what caused a break, not throw their hands in the air and proclaim that it’s just broken — find what is happening under the hood. 🕵️‍♀️
6. Measure whatever is measurable

While our products help organizations make better data-driven decisions, it is important for us to measure everything that we can to figure out the next course of actions. 📊
7. Automate whatever is repetitive

Our base tendency should be to automate wherever possible, rather than doing tasks manually — automation gives us more time to work on building the actual product. ✔️
8. Premature optimization is the root of all evil

Pick the right battles to fight at the right time. If you optimize too early, you’ll spend and re-spend lots of time and still come out with not the most optimized solution. 🙅
9. When in doubt, ask!

Stuck or confused? 🤔 Just ask your fellow engineers! Someone will have a solution, or at least an idea to help you get started on the right path. ➡️
We hope these were helpful — whether you’re an engineer interested in working with us or you’re forming your own team’s engineering commandments! :) Interested to learn more about #engineering culture #InsideSocialCops? Check here: https://t.co/QTVs9tf1tj

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SolarWinds Hack

A digital "Pearl Harbor" moment for the United States, whoever was responsible had access to the keys to the kingdom for months during 2020, including sensitive military infrastructure. This is war!

SunGard + SolarWinds

SolarWinds software company is owned by same company that owns SunGard, which essentially provides data center services. A secure place to host internet servers with redundant power and "big pipe" data connections.

https://t.co/U3P3SrrkM1


SunGard Data Center

In Nashville, around the corner from their "big pipe" connection, AT&T. Like any data center, highly secure. Only authorized personnel can enter, and even fewer can access the actual server rooms. Backup generators are available in case of power failure.


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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x