Brian Allbee

I'm expecting to run as many as four #MotW mysteries at #MileHiCon this year. If you're there too, and have any interest in a different #TTRPG, come find me. 😉 Here's some teaser-level info about them...

Didn't get listed in the program, and trying to get ad-hoc participation is... quite challenging. Next year. Maybe.

#MotW #TTRPG #MileHiCon this weekend

#MotW #TTRPG #MileHiCon this weekend.

#MotW #TTRPG #MileHiCon this weekend.

#MotW #TTRPG #MileHiCon this weekend

These events are usually explained away as accidents, natural events, or problems with the city's infrastructure. Last week, it moved more than usual. Several buildings were badly damaged. One partly collapsed into a sinkhole. Despite the damage, things soon seemed to return to normal.

Then people started finding bodies.

It Comes from Below Somewhere beneath Franklin, a massive ancient creature sleeps. Most people do not know it’s there. Every so often, it moves. When it does, streets crack, water mains break, and foul smells rise from deep underground.

milehicon.org

milehicon.orgMileHiCon

About once every ten years, during the hottest part of summer, several people disappear in the swamp. They are never seen again. The most famous disappearance happened seventeen years ago. A decorated combat veteran went into the swamp to catch crawdads. He never came back.

It is August now, and something has changed. Since mid-July, people have found animal remains in the swamp. The bodies are crushed almost beyond recognition. Each new discovery has been closer to town than the last. Then, last week, a local disappeared near the swamp. But not in it.

Since the theater opened, Su-bin has held "Midnight Movies" every Friday and Saturday night. She shows popular films and cult classics. This weekend, something is bringing characters from those movies to life.

Something in the Swamp Outside town, there is a swamp. It freezes in most winters. When spring arrives, the snow melts and the swamp floods. By summer, it is full of plants and animals.

Midnight Movie Madness The Regency Theater in Franklin closed after the COVID-19 pandemic. It was one of many theaters shut down as the company cut costs. The local multiplex stayed closed for several years. Then Kwon Su-bin, a local first-generation Korean American, bought it.

Su-bin reopened the theater as the Kwon Song Theater. It has done reasonably well. The nearby college has a well-regarded film school, which may have helped. Su-bin also listens to suggestions about which movies to show.

Killer Cookies 'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Why, you might wonder, are houses so still? The gingerbread cookies have started to kill…

10 Apr

Not sure how I should feel about it, but I'd not be surprised if I just blacklisted myself from future employment opportunities with AWS. I'm not participating in leetcode-style coding assessments — they're not even close to representing how I work and the kinda if results I get.

10 Apr

I'm not going to take a job where I'm, at best, an #AI jockey/babysitter. I'm kinda surprised, given the AI focus, that they didn't think to just feed my books to one to assess me based on that. 🤷🏻😛

Functional standards are value decisions. (Reflections about Chapter 7 of #HandsOn #SoftwareEngineering with #Python, tinyurl.com/HOSEWP2) #DeveloperExperience #EngineeringLeadership #MaintainableCode

Inside a codebase, invalid inputs eventually surface as errors. At system boundaries — APIs especially — formal contracts let you reject invalid data early, before time and complexity are wasted. That timing shift is the real win.

Enforced I/O contracts turn failures from surprises into decisions. They make systems more predictable for maintainers and more trustworthy for consumers — even when the only visible artifact is a schema.

They freeze intent into a system and shape it long after the code is written — often reinforcing reliability, resilience, and fail-fast behavior when used with discipline.

The functional standard that’s paid off the most for me: formal input/output contracts. They already exist implicitly in function signatures — even in Python. Making them explicit changes when failures happen, not whether they happen.

tinyurl.comHands-On Software Engineering with Python | Programming | PaperbackMove beyond basic programming to design, maintain, and deploy extensible Python systems. Top rated Programming products.

The reluctance of engineers to write documentation is a familiar cliché. It’s tedious, it doesn’t ship features, and there’s a belief that good code should explain itself. (Reflections about Chapter 6 of #HandsOn #SoftwareEngineering with #Python, available at tinyurl.com/HOSEWP2)

Good documentation is also insurance — against turnover, against time, against memory. Sometimes that’s nothing more than a solid IDE help popup. Sometimes it’s the difference between confidence and fear when touching unfamiliar code.

When documentation works, nobody notices. When it fails, everybody pays.

tinyurl.comHands-On Software Engineering with Python | Programming | PaperbackMove beyond basic programming to design, maintain, and deploy extensible Python systems. Top rated Programming products.

If the answer isn’t an immediate “yes,” the documentation isn’t done yet. The alternative is paying that cost later in interruptions and tribal knowledge.

Self-documenting code is useful, but incomplete. It usually explains what the code does, not why it does it. That “why” often becomes critical when constraints aren’t obvious, when behavior looks odd, or when production failures force hard questions. Missing context is expensive.

tinyurl.comHands-On Software Engineering with Python | Programming | PaperbackMove beyond basic programming to design, maintain, and deploy extensible Python systems. Top rated Programming products.

Maybe I’m a fluke. Maybe I’ve just been burned often enough. Either way, I’ve come to see documentation as a stewardship responsibility, not busywork. #DeveloperExperience #EngineeringLeadership #MaintainableCode

Here’s the test I keep coming back to: If I were new to this codebase — or returning after time away — could I safely change it using what’s written in the code itself?

tinyurl.comHands-On Software Engineering with Python | Programming | PaperbackMove beyond basic programming to design, maintain, and deploy extensible Python systems. Top rated Programming products.

30 Jan

Processes like methodologies, CI/CD, and dependency tooling don’t just shape how code gets written. They quietly shape what code gets written — often long before anyone notices. (More cogitation sparked by #HandsOn #SoftwareEngineering with #Python) #EngineeringJudgment #MaintainableSystems

30 Jan

In Python, dependency management choices often dictate project structure. CI/CD pipelines add further constraints on packaging, testing, and deployment. Because these live close to source control, they influence design decisions early — and quietly.

30 Jan

When evaluating processes, I’ve found these questions matter more than dogma: • What behaviors are rewarded or penalized? • Which mistakes become expensive? • What does this optimize for — speed, safety, control? Those answers tend to show up later as quality and risk.

22 Jan

System modeling is a way of thinking, not just diagrams. Writing things down forces you to re-evaluate assumptions and surface missing pieces before they harden into code. (Afterthoughts: #HandsOn #SoftwareEngineering with #Python : tinyurl.com/HOSEWP2) #SystemDesign #MaintainableSystems

22 Jan

Documentation ages faster than code. That’s true. But that only reinforces the point: the thinking behind system models is more valuable than the artifacts themselves. The goal isn’t perfect diagrams — it’s better judgment before production teaches you the hard way.

22 Jan

A simple modeling habit I rely on: • Account for every component • Understand inputs and outputs • Validate data across boundaries • Identify every connection System modeling isn’t about drawing boxes — it’s about seeing where systems will break before they do.

19 Jan

So apparently there's a sale going on for the next day and a half for the eBook edition ::shrugs:: ::grins:: www.packtpub.com/en-UA/produc... #HandsOn #SoftwareEngineering with #Python #eBook #Sale

packtpub.comHands-On Software Engineering with Python | Programming | PaperbackMove beyond basic programming to design, maintain, and deploy extensible Python systems. Top rated Programming products.

A Software Development Life Cycle exists in nearly every software effort, whether engineers recognize it or not. Even teams that reject “formal” SDLCs still perform the same activities, deliberately or otherwise. #SoftwareEngineering #EngineeringLeadership #CareerGrowth #TechnicalJudgment

That doesn’t require a new title. It often starts with participation: • Joining requirements discussions early • Pushing for proof-of-process, not just proof-of-concept • Identifying workflow or dependency risks • Proposing mitigations, even incomplete ones

Helping shape the inputs to development reduces ambiguity later, makes implementation more efficient, and lowers the cost of failure when things go wrong. It’s a surprisingly simple lever for long-term engineering growth.

packtpub.comHands-On Software Engineering with Python | Programming | PaperbackMove beyond basic programming to design, maintain, and deploy extensible Python systems. Top rated Programming products.

Early in a career, engineers usually focus on a narrow slice of that lifecycle: implementing requirements, working within a given design, writing and testing code. Important work — but it’s only part of what leads to a successful system.

Senior- and Staff-level growth comes from engaging earlier. Shaping concepts, surfacing constraints, refining requirements, and identifying risks before they harden into architecture or code creates leverage far beyond implementation alone.

packtpub.comHands-On Software Engineering with Python | Programming | PaperbackMove beyond basic programming to design, maintain, and deploy extensible Python systems. Top rated Programming products.