New blog, first post
This is my new blogging home.
I had previously used this space (https://setheliot.com) as a place to collect my various presentations and papers (and they are still here), but now I will also use this as my new blogging platform.
My old blog was called Your Software has Bugs, and indeed it I am sure your software still does, but for this go I am going to stick with the simpler Seth Eliot’s Blog.
While the old one was primarily about software, this one has a broader scope including software, data science, and whatever I think you might be interested in.
My old blog started with a self-indulgent exploration of me, which was immediately called out by a commenter as being overly self-indulgent and too much about me (looking back at that post, I recall I declined to publish the comment… a decision I now regret). Now instead I would like to start with an exploration of the greatest hits” from my previous blog, with some added context. Sort of a starting point to continue with the new blog.
Presently I am an advocate of (and enjoy helping engineers with) Data-Driven Quality (DDQ). To get an idea of what DDQ is, peruse the deck or watch the talk Create Your Roadmap to Data-Driven Quality. How we use data is central to how we produce quality software. This is certainly not limited to big data, but large unstructured streams of data provide a compelling story – one that we an unlock with modern processing and tools.
So in conclusion, I do indeed like big data :-)
But before there was DDQ, there was TiP — Testing in Production, which I chose to introduce by showing how to do it WRONG:
Feeling TiPsy…Testing in Production Success and Horror Stories
…and also some on how to do it right, such as enabling teenagers to escape reality behind online avatars like this:
I was recently at a Seattle area QA meeting (QASig) where the topic of finding bugs and its place in quality assessment came up. Years I before pondered that question asking sarcastically:
This was an interesting re-read for me as I saw early signs of DDQ in this diagram from the blog post.
See any resemblance to this one from one of my DDQ talks?
To wrap up on TiP and DDQ I will share some fun I had at the expense of Big Blue:
Testing in Production (TiP), a common and costly technical malpractice???
When I presented this story in a talk, I actually got back a comment that it was unprofessional to make fun of IBM. I certainly want to stay professional in my interactions, but I think IBM can take it.
Finally, before I close, I would like to share my most popular blog posts… most popular that is in China! For reasons that I do not quite grasp, the Chinese audience really responded to my posts on the Microsoft change in logo 
The Four Colors of the New Microsoft Company Logo
The Four Colors of Microsoft, revisited
That’s it for now. Look for more timely (for sufficiently broad definitions of timely”) and compelling (well, I think it’s interesting) content soon (or not… I’ll try).