Function Over Fad
Find out a little bit more about what this blog is about and who is doing the talking.
Welcome to Function over Fad. I am Matt Farmer. I'm a software engineer, a father, and (when I make the time) a writer. One of my objectives for 2025 is to get back into writing regularly and this blog is an attempt at doing so. "Function over Fad" is an idea that I've been interested in exploring for a while, and is heavily inspired by Dan McClellan's use of the phrase "Data over Dogma." Dan's area of speciality is the Bible and Christianity. This is an area that, personally, I find fascinating, but my area of expertise is quite different: technology.
In the tech industry we have something that I see as a particular problem of following fads and rather than critically evaluating the function of the things we're following for ethical value, appropriateness to the problem, and the costs of following the fad all the way down its own rabbit hole. We even have a term to describe this behavior in actual code: cargo cult programming. I try really hard to dispassionately evaluate anything we're doing in work or otherwise for their functional value, and let that ultimately inform the decision making.
This blog will cover a variety of topics. Some of those will be specifically about the function (or lack thereof) of specific fads that are front of mind for me. Others will be about the intersection of public policy and technology, practical advice for effective engineering leadership as an Individual Contributor, and really anything else I want to talk about.
I hope you'll join me for the ride.