0→1Technical Fluency
The Story Path/Act II of IV

Sixteen Weeks

Sixteen weeksTraining, and the smaller race in week ten.34 scenes · ~81 min

Finn's world, while Case trains. How the software actually gets made, and the smaller race in week ten where new things debut safely.

Previously

3 claims the story has made so far, with a piece of each left out. Reach for it before you read on; if you have not met them yet, the answer tells you where they happened.

  1. The registration form travelled the wire written in blank, the web's common handwriting.

  2. Case's tap was the kind of ask that changes something: a blank.

  3. Pay was pressed twice and charged once. Both presses carried the same key, and the design is called blank.

The scenes

  1. The time machineWeek one. Finn's Monday, a coffee, and eleven years of memory.3 min
  2. The ticketSomebody wants something, and it becomes work.2 min
  3. Scope and the MVPThe whiteboard where the feature gets smaller on purpose.3 min
  4. The cheer feature, writtenWeek two. Forty lines, on-screen.3 min
  5. Decisions and repetitionFour shapes, arranged forever.3 min
  6. When code goes wrongPriya's Friday question: the runner nobody follows.3 min
  7. Nobody writes aloneShopping for code instead of forging spoons.3 min
  8. Versions and the commons4.2.1, read like a sentence.2 min
  9. Parallel worldsWeek three. Two engineers, one file.2 min
  10. The pull requestA day and a half on one page.2 min
  11. Estimates and edgesDana asks the dreaded question.2 min
  12. The rituals9:45, a circle, eleven minutes.2 min
  13. The other ritualSam's team has no drumbeat at all.2 min
  14. The written cultureThe one-page why, on file forever.3 min
  15. Where Case livesThe filing cabinet and the attic.2 min
  16. Row 11208Case, as the database sees Case.2 min
  17. Keys and relationshipsPointers, not copies, and a sprint-long column.2 min
  18. Reading SQLThe question language, read aloud.3 min
  19. The database's promisesAll of it, or none of it.2 min
  20. Ten years of racesWhere the model will drink from.3 min
  21. The three machinesMolly's, Finn's, and everyone's servers.2 min
  22. What Traversal rentsSam's spreadsheet, months early.2 min
  23. Four grams, revisitedThe chip's one word, letter by letter.2 min
  24. Files and formatsThe attic fills: .jpg, .csv, and text.2 min
  25. The four worldsMolly asks: real race, or practice?2 min
  26. The test pyramidThe exams come in sizes.2 min
  27. A fake marathon every night2 a.m., a full field of invented runners.2 min
  28. Sign-offThe race director, three boroughs of scepticism.2 min
  29. The pipelineForty minutes, no hands.3 min
  30. Shipped darkMaple Grove morning. The flag flips for 5%.3 min
  31. The offline laptopThe tent where the wifi dies and nothing is lost.2 min
  32. The terminalA black window in a parked car.2 min
  33. The language landscapeEight languages in forty steps.3 min
  34. The debts we carry2014 is still down there.3 min

What lights on your story map here

0/173concepts lit

one cell per scene · width is its conceptsreading a scene lights its cell

154 fluency — say them in a meeting18 recognition — nod when you hear them1 named technologies

Show all 173, scene by scene
codebaserepositoryGitGitHubcommitticketbacklogJirarequirementscopeconstraintacceptance criteriaMVPprogramming languagesyntaxsource codevariablescriptfunctionparameterargumentconditionallooperrorexceptionnull handlingedge casehappy pathlintingstatic analysistype checkinglibraryframeworkpackagepackage manageropen-source softwaresoftware licenseversionsemantic versioningupdatepatchdeprecationbranchpushpullmergemerge conflictpull requestdiffcode reviewapprovalestimateblockerriskmilestonestory pointsspikeagilescrumsprintstandupkanbanretroroadmaptechnical specificationdesign documentRFCADRcode ownershipstructured dataunstructured datadatabaserelational databasetablerowcolumnschemaprimary keyforeign keyrelationshipmigrationquerySQLreadwriteNoSQL databasetransactionindexbatchACIDdata warehousedata lakedata pipelineETLELTstreamingpartitioningoperating systemWindowsmacOSLinuxprocessthreadCPUmemory / RAMstorage / diskpersistentephemeralbitbytebinarymachine codefilefolderfile extensiontext filebinary fileenvironmentdevelopment environmenttesting environmentstaging environmentproduction environmentunit testingintegration testingend-to-end testingautomated testingmanual testingtest datamocktest coveragesmoke testingquality assuranceacceptance testingUATregression testingbuild (artifact)pipelinecontinuous integrationcontinuous deliverycontinuous deploymentCI/CDGitHub Actionsreleasedeploymentfeature flagcanary releaseblue-green deploymentshadow modecompressionZIP filelocalremoteuploaddownloadcommand lineterminalshellSSHPythonJavaC/C++GoRubySwiftKotlincompilerinterpreterruntimetechnical debtlegacy systemrefactoringmaintenanceworkaround

Act II — the boundary

The half-second at the matWhere it is written down

480 msMolly's phone shows the split.

  1. 0 msThe chip wakes inside the mat's field.
  2. 2 msIt sends one number: 11208.
  3. 9 msThe mat's reader asks Traversal to record the crossing.
  4. 31 msTraversal writes the split down, and it stays written.
  5. 38 msTraversal answers the reader: recorded.
  6. 480 msMolly's phone shows the split.

6 steps so far. The rest of the half-second arrives in later acts.

At 31 ms, the mat's row reads: Traversal writes the split down, and it stays written. If the machine died mid-write, what stops a half-written split from ever surviving?