Love this post. Writing on programming languages has changed how I think about _programming_ in general.
I often think about this quote from TAPL. This framing of “safety” changed how I design systems.
> Informally, though, safe languages can be defined as ones that make it impossible to shoot yourself in the foot while programming.
> Refining this intuition a little, we could say that a safe language _is one that protects its own abstractions_.
> Safety refers to the language's ability to guarantee the integrity of these abstractions and of higher-level abstractions introduced by the programmer using the definitional facilities of the language. For example, a language may provide arrays, with access and update operations, as an abstraction of the underlying memory. A programmer using this language then expects that an array can be changed only by using the update operation on it explicitly—and not, for example, by writing past the end of some other data structure.
American healthcare is seldom affordable, accessible, or high-quality. We are fixing this for pediatrics. Blueberry is the most affordable option amongst our competitors. We practice the highest quality pediatric telemedicine, as evidenced by our exclusive hiring of board-certified pediatricians and the usage of at-home medical kits. And, we’re accessible 24 hours a day.
Our success is shown in the lives we save, the costs we save our insurers, and our exploding B2B and D2C business.
As you can imagine, pulling off affordable high-quality healthcare is a challenge. It requires a lot of engineering ingenuity, a C-suite aligned with positive patient outcomes above short-term profits, and a great product team.
We use Django, Hotwire Turbo (an HTMX-like framework), Pytorch, Sklearn, and Flutter. Experience in these technologies helps, but what’s more important is general full-stack knowledge, curiosity, and a strong work ethic.
Also, if you haven’t read the linked Oxide RFD#3 [1], I recommend doing so. It has shaped much of our hiring process.
> But how does one assess candidates for such positions? This is an age-old question without a formulaic answer: designing, building, selling, and supporting computing systems is itself too varied to admit a single archetype.
> In terms of evaluation mechanism: using in-person interviewing alone can be highly unreliable and can select predominantly for surface aspects of a candidate’s personality. While we advocate (and indeed, insist upon) interviews, they should come relatively late in the process; as much assessment as possible should be done by allowing the candidate to show themselves as they truly work: on their own, via their creations.
This is awesome -- and terrific to see that our process served as an inspiration! Really love what you've done here in that you've clearly incorporated some of our own lessons but also made it very much your own. All very heartwarming to see; good luck to you and Blueberry on your laudable mission!
I’ve seen a lot of positivity surrounding login.gov on HackerNews. I’ve never used the service and am unfamiliar with the quality of its implementation. Many commenters here point to login.gov as an example of the US government shipping good software. [1]
1. From the end-user’s perspective, what makes this a quality service? Is it simply better than other government alternatives, or does it compete with equivalent modern services from the private sector?
2. From the technologist's perspective, why is this considered quality software? I see it's an open-source Ruby on Rails app[2] with basic documentation, tests, and monitoring. As a non-RoR developer, I'm curious where this project falls on the spectrum from merely adequate to exceptional, and why.
[1] e.g., in this comment section: “login.gov is one of the few government services that as a private sector techie I'm in awe of”
> 1. From the end-user’s perspective, what makes this a quality service? Is it simply better than other government alternatives, or does it compete with equivalent modern services from the private sector?
I couldn't even login to ssa.gov before it was integrated with login.gov. Every year or two I'd give it a shot, it told me my account was locked, I had to visit a Social Security office to get it unlocked. I tried that once; the local office wasn't able to help. Fast forward a few years and the login process has been delegated to login.gov. I was able to prove my identity in the normal way (asked a bunch of questions from my credit report) and finally login.
So let's start with: it works.
But it's at least as good as any SSO that I use elsewhere (Okta, Apple, Google). It supports multiple factors (security key, passkey, TOTP, etc), something that, e.g., Fidelity only barely offers.
Besides that, it's visually appealing, having a nice modern look.
I'm happy that it sounds like Login.gov is better than the broken solution we had before. At the same time, I do not think a basic functional login system is something that should be celebrated as a success.
Why would this not be a success? The previous system didn’t work, the govt created a specialized team that built a great functional product, and now it works... they fixed a problem? Many would consider that a success.
Maybe don’t look at this through the lens of a tech company or normal business (bc it’s not), but look at I from the perspective of how shite govt tech is. Not sure if you live in the states but you should try apply to unemployment in somewhere like Florida and then report back to me how having a functional login page isn’t a success.
It's funny you say that. The NC DMV used to have a decent site for renewing registration. It was basic but functional. No bling. Took me like 2 minutes to use.
A few years ago they replaced it with a vendor solution (PayIt[1]). It's terrible. The renewal process easily takes 5x as long. The old site was two steps and a couple forms. The new site is this stupid chat bot interface that pretends like it's thinking between the half dozen or so steps it now is. On top of that, I get to pay $3 or something for the privilege of using it.
Annoys me just thinking about it.
I have a whole rant about our local private toll road's web site too. Easily in the bottom 5 sites I have to deal with. I may switch back to MA's EZ Pass just out of spite.
As a Canadian end user with a nexus card, it just works, and it works with less errors and issues than my revenue canada login which has poor UI and steers me towards sign in partners with by making that the natural login with dark patterns. Come to think of it, I'm surprised the nexus program hasn't been cancelled yet.
American healthcare is seldom affordable, accessible, or high-quality. We are fixing this for pediatrics. Blueberry is the most affordable option amongst our competitors. We practice the highest quality pediatric telemedicine, as evidenced by our exclusive hiring of board-certified pediatricians and the usage of at-home medical kits. And, we’re accessible 24 hours a day.
Our success is shown in the lives we save, the costs we save our insurers, and our exploding B2B and D2C business.
As you can imagine, pulling off affordable high-quality healthcare is a challenge. It requires a lot of engineering ingenuity, a C-suite aligned with positive patient outcomes above short-term profits, and a great product team.
We use Django and Hotwire Turbo (an HTMX-like framework). Experience in these technologies helps, but what’s more important is general full-stack knowledge, curiosity, and a strong work ethic.
American healthcare is seldom affordable, accessible, or high-quality. We are fixing this for pediatrics. Blueberry is the most affordable option amongst our competitors. We practice the highest quality pediatric telemedicine, as evidenced by our exclusive hiring of board-certified pediatricians and the usage of at-home medical kits. And, we’re accessible 24 hours a day.
Our success is shown in the lives we save, the costs we save our insurers, and our exploding B2B and D2C business.
As you can imagine, pulling off affordable high-quality healthcare is a challenge. It requires a lot of engineering ingenuity, a C-suite aligned with positive patient outcomes above short-term profits, and a great product team.
We use Django and Hotwire Turbo (an HTMX-like framework). Experience in these technologies helps, but what’s more important is general full-stack knowledge, curiosity, and a strong work ethic.
American healthcare is seldom affordable, accessible, or high-quality. We are fixing this for pediatrics. Blueberry is the most affordable option amongst our competitors. We practice the highest quality pediatric telemedicine, as evidenced by our exclusive hiring of board-certified pediatricians and the usage of at-home medical kits. And, we’re accessible 24 hours a day.
Our success is shown in the lives we save, the costs we save our insurers, and our exploding B2B and D2C business.
As you can imagine, pulling off affordable high-quality healthcare is a challenge. It requires a lot of engineering ingenuity, a C-suite aligned with positive patient outcomes above short-term profits, and a great product team.
We use Django and Hotwire Turbo (an HTMX-like framework). Experience in these technologies helps, but what’s more important is general full-stack knowledge, curiosity, and a strong work ethic.
American healthcare is seldom affordable, accessible, or high-quality. We are fixing this for pediatrics. Blueberry is the most affordable option amongst our competitors. We practice the highest quality pediatric telemedicine, as evidenced by our exclusive hiring of board-certified pediatricians and the usage of at-home medical kits. And, we’re accessible 24 hours a day.
Our success is shown in the lives we save, the costs we save our insurers, and our exploding B2B and D2C business.
As you can imagine, pulling off affordable high-quality healthcare is a challenge. It requires a lot of engineering ingenuity, a C-suite aligned with positive patient outcomes above short-term profits, and a great product team.
We use Django, Hotwire Turbo (an HTMX-like framework), Pytorch, Sklearn, and Flutter. Experience in these technologies helps, but what’s more important is general full-stack knowledge, curiosity, and a strong work ethic.
American healthcare is seldom affordable, accessible, or high-quality. We are fixing this for pediatrics. Blueberry is the most affordable option amongst our competitors. We practice the highest quality pediatric telemedicine, as evidenced by our exclusive hiring of board-certified pediatricians and the usage of at-home medical kits. And, we’re accessible 24 hours a day.
Our success is shown in the lives we save, the costs we save our insurers, and our exploding B2B and D2C business.
As you can imagine, pulling off affordable high-quality healthcare is a challenge. It requires a lot of engineering ingenuity, a C-suite aligned with positive patient outcomes above short-term profits, and a great product team.
We use Django, Hotwire Turbo (an HTMX-like framework), Pytorch, Sklearn, and Flutter. Experience in these technologies helps, but what’s more important is general full-stack knowledge, curiosity, and a strong work ethic.
I often think about this quote from TAPL. This framing of “safety” changed how I design systems.
> Informally, though, safe languages can be defined as ones that make it impossible to shoot yourself in the foot while programming.
> Refining this intuition a little, we could say that a safe language _is one that protects its own abstractions_.
> Safety refers to the language's ability to guarantee the integrity of these abstractions and of higher-level abstractions introduced by the programmer using the definitional facilities of the language. For example, a language may provide arrays, with access and update operations, as an abstraction of the underlying memory. A programmer using this language then expects that an array can be changed only by using the update operation on it explicitly—and not, for example, by writing past the end of some other data structure.
https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/tapl/
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