Jurgen Appelo

The WET criticism relates to not following the maxim of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself There have been some long threads here about other people's evolution as programmers and what kinds of things they felt helped them improve. I don't have one in mind right now, but maybe you could find one. You could also try reading a couple of software engineering books that talk about some of these concepts. Wikipedia mentions The Pragmatic Programmer, and there's also Code Complete and others. (I haven't read either of those.) Here's a list of the best "software engineering" books, although the focus of these is incredibly varied and some probably wouldn't be relevant to you. http://noop.nl/2008/06/top-100-best-software-engineering-books-ever.ht…

First, you are confusing visas. The tourist visa is not the same as the visa waiver. There is a tourist visa, it's called B-2 and it does not allow you to do any business or work. Visiting with the visa waiver program means visiting without a visa. Next, for short trips, visiting without a visa is equivalent to having a business visa (B-1). It allows you to meet with US clients, customers, partners, and so on and it allows you to go to conferences. It does not allow you to work. See as a recent example from Hacker News: http://www.noop.nl/2011/06/american-learning-experience.html

http://www.noop.nl/2009/03/top-50-new-software-development-books.html http://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/comments/ce592/ask_rcompsci_what_are_s… http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/ch0wt/a_reading_list_for_the_se… http://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/comments/dynkd/ask_rcompsci_must_read_… http://krainboltgreene.github.com/l/2/ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2002602

Update: I'm now at 174 rss feeds to track. I've seen some really ugly blogs along the way. Also, here's a post that purports to list the top 100 dev blogs: http://www.noop.nl/2008/09/top-100-blogs-for-development-managers-q3-2… Keep 'em coming.

I don't think complexity is bad, it's just harder. "Bad" is a judgement, but complexity is just a description of nature. This reminds me of an article I found recently while trying to explain to a business analyst that the problems we are solving aren't simple. https://noop.nl/2008/08/simple-vs-complicated-vs-complex-vs-chaotic.ht… I think what is bad is confusing complex and complicated things for simple things. If you think a problem is simple, when it is complex or complicated, then you'll expect the solution sooner and you won't think deeply about all the ramifications of the solution. You'll avoid breaking the complexity down into simple parts. By their nature, complex things are unpredictable. Things that behave unpredictably are complex. It doesn't make them bad, just means they need more attention and thought to understand -- and sometimes accept. Another good resource I just discovered is the Cynefin framework that breaks it down further: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework > obvious, complicated, complex, chaotic, and disorder

I'm not confusing the visas, though I probably could have made it clearer. I'm not talking about what you can do with the visa waiver. I specifically mentioned the case where the visitor is from South America, because there's no visa waiver for us. For people who are require to have visas, the tourist visa and the business visa are issued together. When you get to the port of embark, you tell the immigration officer whether you're coming for business or pleasure. http://www.workpermit.com/us/employer_b1_b2.htm > Next, for short trips, visiting without a visa is equivalent to having a business visa (B-1). It allows you to meet with US clients, customers, partners, and so on and it allows you to go to conferences. Yeah, that's the situation I described. > It does not allow you to work. ...for an US entity. If you're going for business then you're working, right? Anyway, even if it's not specifically allowed, there's a gray area. > See as a recent example from Hacker News: http://www.noop.nl/2011/06/american-learning-experience.html I read that, I think he was quite naive and uninformed. He should have done what I described. "I'm working for DutchCorp, and will go to a business trade event, here's the invitation". Then he would make sure the event organizers would not pay him directly. They would pay his Dutch company, and he would get paid in Netherlands, not in US.