Michael Callaghan

My latest book is live and available now. This one is all about navigating the harsh realities of enterprise software projects, which claim to be "agile," but not really.

This experiment completed successfully. Qwen 3.5:9b loaded inside @claudeai read my entire manuscript, using skills I had provided, and gave me a thorough analysis of the book. It took 11 hours 18 minutes to finish, but it worked. 😄

Long-range estimates are often partly theater, partly a date already set, partly a real planning need. Refuse fake precision, not the conversation.

Is there any way to turn off ESC to interrupt in @claudeai ? I can't tell you how many times I have accidentally interrupted a long running process because I thought my focus was another window. I've started minimizing the Claude window now, but then I can't watch its progress.

Currently letting Claude Code do an editorial review on a novel I've been working on. Everything is running locally, through Ollama and Qwen 3.5:9b on a 16GB M1 MacBook Air. I expect it'll take hours, but I'm cool with that.

@markentner You had me worried for a brief moment

@walkingriver Forgot to use the sarcasm font

What is your response if you are asked to estimate eight sprints before stories even exist?

Developers speak complexity and risk. Leadership speaks timelines and budgets. Same work, two languages. It's up to the tech lead to manage that translation.

@chrisbbehrens I may have to steal that one

@walkingriver I'm not a science fiction writer

@chrisbbehrens Not to mention ChatGBT 😂

@walkingriver ???

This might be my new favorite bad review of one of my books.

@chrisbbehrens I didn't teach how to program against ChatGBT directly. Granted, my book's description doesn't promise anything of the sort.

When asked for a date, try: what we know, what we do not, a range if nothing changes, what we will flag early if it shifts. Early uncertainty beats surprise.

It’s been running for about ten minutes now. What’s the likelihood of it finishing? M1 MacBook Air with 16GB RAM. I also have a small fan blowing across the laptop vents.

"When will it be done?" is a fair question that needs an answer. Budgets and releases need dates. Honest and precise rarely coexist under uncertainty. Managing up is translation.

When ceremonies survive budget cuts and test automation does not, you get long releases with a manual QA pile at the end. The math is predictable.

AI for learning a new framework: net positive or net negative? I am net positive only if I explain the generated code out loud afterward. Which side are you on?

Half the team on incidents for two days? Say it in review before someone asks why velocity dropped. Context reduces anxious polling.

@chrisbbehrens I guess I should have put quotes around that. 😅

I do not have imposter syndrome anymore. I have did I actually read that diff syndrome.

I'm embracing conventional commits. Commit messages are status for everyone else: "auth: handle expired refresh tokens; fixes PROD-4421" beats "fix login bug" when someone traces the sprint at 3pm.