Tertulia

Another interesting problem: say we use MCP. It looks like OAuth can get the user's identity to the server. What's the standard way — the zero-trust way 😏 — for the server to decide whether this user is authorized to invoke a given capability? Or even whether the server should admit to them that the capability exists?

Roughly the nail on the head of why I can't use Scala at work:

[W]hat killed Haskell is the parochialism, the inability to address the needs of the Enterprise... If we’re going to survive in the end, we have to address problems that everybody has. Otherwise someone else will address those problems. - Alexander Granin, memeing Robert C. Martin

I'd disagree with the characterization as parochialism, though. I've met enough talented functional programmers to know that it isn't really an ego thing. It's more about what excites a certain kind of person paid to code when they wake up in the morning.

Early in my career I got caught up in languages and frameworks, like lots of developers. But something happened that may not happen to every programmer, but certainly changed my mind about my work: I started working with non-profits, educational institutions, and the federal government, on software adjacent to problems whose outcomes I cared about. I've been fortunate enough to find work where the mission matters, and to keep drawing from the well of important problems.

There's a whole universe of great things happening in the Scala ecosystem I just don't see often, or really even think about, because I live so far up the stack, right alongside my customers. This window into Cats Effect on Scala Metals is pretty inspiring. I can't easily cross-compile Tertulia due to Doobie (though JDBC should be replaceable with Skunk), plus some of my other fun features, like processing Anki stats and rendering genuinely good social media previews.

Summer reading list —

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It―Unlock Your Persuasion Potential in Professional and Personal Life by Chris Voss with Tahl Raz

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen of the Harvard Negotiation Project