stephan hagemannThe xkcd comics I keep referencing
I mostly think about structure in software and in the teams that build it. What belongs together, what should stay apart, and why that's harder than it sounds.
One of the first accounts I followed on the fediverse, after this site became its own account, was xkcd (the comic lives at xkcd.com). That felt right because I had just referenced, as so often, one of the comics at work.
Here are the four I reference most — from youngest to oldest.
Dependency#
It shows up every time a small open source library turns out to hold up half the internet. The alt text names ImageMagick. Pick your favorite.
Workflow#
It’s the comic version of Hyrum’s Law: with enough users, every observable behavior of your API is depended on by somebody. Whenever a fix breaks somebody, this is the link in the thread.
Standards#
This one is the reply to every proposal that starts with “let’s just unify.”
Compiling#
The oldest of the four, and the one that has aged the most interestingly. Our compiles got faster. Then our test suites got slower, then our CI pipelines, and now we wait for coding agents. The excuse changes; the sword fight stays.
Why these four#
Looking at them together, none of them is about code. They are about people: who maintains what, who depends on what, who agrees on what, and who is waiting on what. I think that’s because, as they say, software was never the hard part.
Which ones do you regularly reference?
All comics by Randall Munroe, xkcd.com, used under CC BY-NC 2.5.
by Stephan Hagemann