Trunk-Based Thierry

@tdpauw
909 Followers
105 Following
1.2K Posts
most outspoken shy and introverted engineer 🙌 💪
former electromechanical engineer ⚙️
consulting CTO 🤵
founder https://thinkinglabs.io
I writehttps://thinkinglabs.io/
I codehttps://github.com/tdpauw
pronounsthey/them

I'm starting a new series on Conway's Law 🙈
Published: Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law

What started as merely note-taking in the form of "Shades of Conway's Law" evolved into a talk, with additional reading, research, and more connections.

This series represents an expansion of those ideas and a reflection on the journey.

This is work in progress 😅

https://thinkinglabs.io/articles/2026/04/24/beyond-the-shades-of-conways-law.html

Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law

ThinkingLabs:: Thierry de Pauw

Forget trad wives, the new influencer trend should be #NerdWives.

"Hey honey, I turned our old computer into a server so I could set up a #fediverse instance for our child and her friends."

"Hey all, today I am showing you #NextCloud as an alternative to #Dropbox and #GoogleDrive."

"Get ready with me! Today I am showing you how I check in with my friends with off-grid mesh radio first thing in the morning."

How awesome would this be? I mean, finally a trend where people LEARN SOMETHING and are more empowered as a result.

(Forever grateful to my Fedi friends for all the inspiration and encouragement in trying new tools) ❤️​

#MySoCalledSudoLife

RE: https://mastodon.social/@tdpauw/116392584939788699

Thierry pulls no punches, as usual.

Published: Don’t Let AI Invert The Testing Pyramid

Lately, I encountered a specific article titled "Quality Engineering with AI". I have seen it shared with a dangerous level of enthusiasm within organisations.

To the untrained eye, the article appears to validate a so-called "modern" testing strategy; to anyone who understands software economics and the mechanics of software delivery, it is plain disconcerting.

https://thinkinglabs.io/articles/2026/04/12/dont-let-ai-invert-the-testing-pyramid.html

Don’t Let AI Invert The Testing Pyramid

ThinkingLabs:: Thierry de Pauw

Published: Don’t Let AI Invert The Testing Pyramid

Lately, I encountered a specific article titled "Quality Engineering with AI". I have seen it shared with a dangerous level of enthusiasm within organisations.

To the untrained eye, the article appears to validate a so-called "modern" testing strategy; to anyone who understands software economics and the mechanics of software delivery, it is plain disconcerting.

https://thinkinglabs.io/articles/2026/04/12/dont-let-ai-invert-the-testing-pyramid.html

Don’t Let AI Invert The Testing Pyramid

ThinkingLabs:: Thierry de Pauw

I got a dm from someone who joined one of my open enrollment workshops in DC in the 00’s and then brought me in to work with his teams as he worked on different things. Anyhoo, he saw my 2008 Conway’s Law blog post quoted in a meeting the other day, and reached out to tell me :)

Thank you to @tdpauw and @matthewskelton and others for bringing my um “colorful” paraphrases and implications of Conway’s Law to more folk <smiles>

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."
Carl Sagan

There is an art (and a science) to numerical precision that seems lost in software, writing and conversation. The trick to appropriate precision is understanding accuracy. This all falls under the banner of numeracy.

For example, I just received a confirmation of a cinema booking that gave the time of the film in HH:MM:SS format. The site lists programme times in HH:MM. They normally start trailers within a few minutes of the advertised time. To list seconds is an innumerate and false promise.

Which references another interesting article on the topic from Adam Tornhill

Skills rot at machine speed: AI is changing how developers learn and think

https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2025/04/28/skills-rot-at-machine-speed-ai-is-changing-how-developers-learn-and-think/

In reply, someone shared this interesting article:

Cog Debt Article: From Tech Debt to Cognitive and Intent Debt
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.22106