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One of the signal achievements of computing is data compression 1 : we take in data, make it smaller while retaining all information (“lossless” compression), transmit it, and then decompress it back to the original at the other end.
I sometimes find myself asked to give advice on how organisations should go about creating software, but often my advice doesn’t gel with those who sought it. Sometimes that’s because only one answer was ever considered acceptable; sometimes I am ignorant of important wider context and my answer is unworthy of…