Kate Heddleston
kateheddleston.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2015
Kate Heddleston writes about engineering culture, process, diversity, feedback, and the ethics of being a programmer.
What HN saysHN commenters cite her essay "The Null Process" in discussions of why teams that avoid formal process end up with an unspoken one anyway.
22HN people shared it
2linked it in comments
23stories submitted
268story points
5 years agolast shared
2015people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Becoming a 10x Developer (2018)7 people · 114 points · first shared 2018 · 52 comments on HN
- 2The Null Process (2015)5 people · 69 points · first shared 2015 · 19 comments on HN
- 3Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression2 people · 48 points · first shared 2015 · 61 comments on HN
- 4Improving Diversity Does Not Mean Lowering the Bar2 people · 6 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 5Criticism and Ineffective Feedback2 people · 5 points · first shared 2015 · 1 comments on HN
- 6Retention and the Cross-Generational Pipeline2 people · 3 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 7Social Norms and Gendered Expectations1 people · 17 points · first shared 2015 · 15 comments on HN
- 8A Modern Day Take on the Ethics of Being a Programmer1 people · 5 points · first shared 2015 · 1 comments on HN
- 9How Our Engineering Environments Are Killing Diversity: Introduction1 people · 1 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
gadders · 2020-01-16
I always liked this essay about "The Null Process" [1] which touches on some of the same topics:
>> Our fear of "unnecessary process" has created workplaces with something worse than bad process: no process. I call these types of processes "null processes," and they are rampant at startups and technology companies.
[1] https://www.kateheddleston.com/blog/the-null-process
joshmarlow · 2018-04-04
It sounds like our experiences were similar; I was very anti-process, but now see the value.
I read about a really interesting concept - "the null process" [0] - recently. The idea is that there is always a set way of doing things (a process) whether it's documented or not.
[0] - https://kateheddleston.com/blog/the-null-process