Hi there!

This is the first issue of the ABEND dump. A series of posts I will be publishing with the most interesting content I’ve been reading on the internet lately.

What is ABEND dump?

First of all, you might be asking, what is ABEND dump anyways?

TLDR, it’s a term for mainframe dumps. The exact origin is unknown to me.

The more detailed answer:

It’s a shorthand for Abnormal End.

The Merrian-Webster dictionary defines it as:

the unexpected failure of a piece of computer software

The IBM z/OS documentation says:

Typically, a dump is requested when the program cannot continue processing and abnormally ends. An operator can also request an ABEND dump while ending a program or an address space.

The Merrian-Webster dictionary says the first known use was in 1974. However, there are rumors that IBM was referring to it back in the 60s. I’m not surprised, IBM is on the market for mainframes since 1952.

The word Abend also means Evening in German. Coincidence? I bet those who coined the term knew that Abend is a German word that fits nicely as a shorthand for Abnormal End and used it as a pun. Funny, huh? It’s definitely a pun to me, considering I tend to write in the evenings.

Ok, now let’s get down to business.

My interesting readings from August 2022

The two types of quality

Zeno Rocha dives into the explanation of what is quality, how they differ, and what works and what inspires.

How SQLite Is Tested

Writing automated tests is a topic very close to my heart, and it’s so nice to see a robust open-source project such as SQLite providing such a thorough explanation of how they do it.

SQLite Internals: Pages & B-trees

B+Tree index structures in InnoDB

Things You Should Know About Databases

These three blog posts about databases were used as a reference for my first publication: Mimicking a database index

The posts about SQLite and InnoDB were particularly interesting. It’s so fascinating to read about the internals of tools I use often or have used in the past.

When is JIT Faster Than A Compiler?

Noah Gibbs explains in an approachable way what is JIT, and mentions YJIT, the part of CRuby he’s working on and is planned to come out in the next Ruby release.

After some time away from the Ruby community, it’s so nice to come back and see so many interesting projects and initiatives.

Weak and strong team concepts

In this post, Will Larson explains different concepts on how teams are organized and what forces are promoting one concept or the other.

Don’t be fooled by the title, weak and strong here should not be taken literally:

A strong team concept is one where ownership, work, and accountability are generally assigned to teams. Signs of a strong concept are sprints, story points, tracking tickets, SLAs, and goals. A weak team concept is one where most work is assigned to individuals, and work is driven primarily through interpersonal connections rather than process.

It’s good reading material, complementing the Staff Engineer Book.

Check out the review I wrote about the Staff Engineer Book.

Image from Unsplash.

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