A single wild grass stem gracefully bends against a dark, blurred background. The delicate seeds catch the light beautifully. Photography by Debra Martz
Single Leaf in Grayscale Framed Print by Debra Martz
25% Off All Types of #WallArt
It was Autumn, and all the leaves but this one had fallen from a small tree.
Converted to black and white from my original color photograph.
A delicate leaf is captured in intricate detail, showcasing its veins against a dark background. The black and white composition highlights its fragile beauty. by Debra Martz
If a dependency bump can shatter your stack, you don't need fewer updates. You need better tests.
I maintain 50+ OSS repos as one human. I don't babysit them. I automated everything, including updates and minor releases. Many repos haven't been touched in 6 years. AS now JUnit 6 rolled in, a chunk failed. Perfect.
Why perfect? Because failure is a signal, not a disaster. Good tests mean breakage never escapes. I've had repos fail on a Java date parser change. Beautiful. I saw it before release, fixed it, moved on. During Log4Shell and Spring4Shell I didn't panic. I just waited for the next update. That's what behaviour tests are for. And no, they are not slow. If your tests crawl, your design does too.
I trust code I write. I do not trust magic. I remove convenience glue that silently rots:
I don't need MultiValueMap when Map<List> is clearer.
I don't need StringUtils.isEmpty when a simple null or empty check is obvious.
I don't need annotations that smuggle in half a framework.
Every extra library is a future liability: CVEs, Licences, Security, Data Privacy, Performance, breaking changes, mental overhead. Use them to start, then delete them to last. Fewer moving parts mean fewer ways to die.
After 6 years my micro systems still boot in micro seconds, still read clean, still behave. CI pipelines aged, sure, but the code stayed boring. Boring is freedom. Quiet, peaceful, done.
If your stack cannot auto-update without heart palpitations, the problem isn't updates. It's architecture.
Principles I ship by
Automate updates and everything else I can. Let tests be the gate, not fear.
Push behaviour tests to the edges. If it's slow, refactor until it isn't.
Prefer primitives and standard libs. Delete decorative wrappers.
Design for micro systems, not micro monoliths. Start fast, stay fast.
Fewer tools, fewer surprises, fewer nights on fire.
Congratulations. The system failed safely. After fix, you may proceed to do literally anything else with your life.
This is a canvas of a little watercolor blackbird perched on a branch with soft white leaves and tiny berries against a textured soft rust colored background.
Wall mounted framed print of Golden Leafy Sea Dragon With Shadow by Joan Stratton - paintingsbyjoan.com in lounge room setting.
A pure underwater enchantment! With its jagged golden fronds, cosmic colour swirls, and shadowed echo, it feels like a creature born from coral dreams and reef-side legends.
Somewhere beneath the reef’s edge, a golden leafy sea dragon drifts like a whispered secret, its fronds fluttering like kelp caught in a dream. With a hint of cosmic colours under its golden armour and a shadow that trails like a memory, this creature feels ancient and otherworldly, like it’s gliding through time as much as water.
It’s not just a sea dragon, it’s a reef dancer, a storyteller, a shimmer of myth in motion. There’s something regal in its posture, something curious in its eye, and something wild in the way it refuses to blend in, even though by design it is supposed to.
Created using my Ether Art technique - hand-drawn digitally from a blank canvas, this piece blends expressive abstraction with storytelling and vibrant colours that pop on a white background.
Perfect for lovers of quirky marine art, surreal design, and joyful design. Available across fine art prints, canvases, puzzles, apparel, and home décor.
Loaded without a background so you can choose your own colour on products :)
Explore more expressive aquatic and abstract works in my gallery at:
https://joan-stratton.pixels.com/collections/fish+
sea+dragons+and+horses
Wall mounted framed print of Cosmic Colourful Seahorse With Shadow by Joan Stratton - paintingsbyjoan.com , in a lounge room setting.
A vibrant seahorse drifts through a sea of imagination, cosmic swirls and radiant colour, casting a shadow that hints at mystery beneath the surface. With spines like coral crowns and an eye full of wonder, this vibrant creature floats in quiet rhythm, suspended in a world where the ocean meets the stars.
I created this piece using my Ether Art technique — hand-drawn digitally from a blank canvas, blending expressive abstraction with storytelling and bold colour.
Cosmic Colourful Seahorse With Shadow is perfect for lovers of whimsical sea life, surreal marine art, and joyful design. Available across fine art prints, canvases, puzzles, apparel, and home décor.
Loaded without a background so you can choose your own colour on products :)
Explore more expressive aquatic and abstract works in my gallery at:
https://joan-stratton.pixels.com/collections/fish+sea+dragons+and+horses
The original #LISP had 7 primitives: (\texttt{cons}), (\texttt{car,}) (\texttt{cdr}), (\texttt{atom}), (\texttt{quote}), (\texttt{eq}), and (\texttt{cond}). And the original #Smalltalk syntax could fit on a 5×7 card. That meant a novice could learn the syntax in a matter of minutes, and direct all his efforts to learning how properly to wield the power of that Turing-complete language. This was why, in the 1970s and the 1980s, many college freshmen were taught FP in Scheme (a more modern LISP) and many middle school children were taught OO in Smalltalk. These were surely the best "first" #programming languages.
#FORTRAN and #BASIC were simple, too. FORTRAN, the first high-level language, has been in continuous use since the late 1950s by engineers, who are not keyboard warriors. BASIC was invented in the early 1960s for teaching programming to non-STEM students at Dartmouth. It sired a whole generation of self-taught children in the 1980s.
Compare those to C++, Erlang, Python, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Scala, Rust, Kotlin, and pretty much every language in popular use today. Most consider Python and JavaScript to be the simplest of modern languages. Yet, they are massive, complex languages. No 10-year-old could teach himself those, nor should he.
The original versions of those classic languages cannot be used to solve modern problems. But they should still be taught to youngsters as their first language. Throwing in the kids' faces a modern enterprise language confuses them and discourages them. Consequently, many novices never attain that state of flow, when the joy of programming gushes forth.
When you love what you are doing, you don’t need coffee... but it still helps! ☕️
🍃 In the quiet mind, Work becomes a pure delight, Sufficient in love. 🌿 #NatureHealing#LoveAndLife
When you love what you are doing, you don’t need coffee... but it still helps! ☕️
🍃 In the quiet mind, Work becomes a pure delight, Sufficient in love. 🌿 #NatureHealing #LoveAndLife
When you love what you are doing, you don’t need a vacation... but a beach wouldn’t hurt! 🏖️
Loving what you do means never working a day in your life... except on Mondays. 😅 🌟 Embrace the joy of doing what you love! 🌟
"When you love what you are doing, you are not ambitious, you are not greedy, you are not seeking fame, because that very love of what you are doing is totally sufficient in itself." - J. Krishnamurti
#LoveWhatYouDo #InnerPeace #Simplicity #JKrishnamurti #Wisdom via Mufajjal Raja