July 21st 2021
Are you using a spreadsheet as a database?
One of the biggest complaints about a spreadsheet is that it is not a database.
June 22nd 2021
The average spreadsheet has an error every hundred cells
One error in every hundred cells. Think about that. Now also consider the number of decisions people make based on spreadsheets. Now tell me that is not a problem.
June 4th 2021
A vaccine, a car and an Excel spreadsheet meet in a bar...
Why do we trust things? And how do we bolster trust in software?
May 26th 2021
How do you verify trust?
Let's stop hoping software development projects will work out, and start trusting they will. But how do you validate trust?
May 18th 2021
Code that does the right thing
We have many ways of proving that code does things right: unit tests, integration tests, Q&A-teams, and documentation. But there is no way we can prove that the code does the right things. We need to fix that. Domain Engineers have a crucial role to play here.
May 11th 2021
Can software teams deliver basic quality?
Domain engineers are the missing link. I am excited to see specific disciplines being established to train such engineers like Bio-Informatics. Domain Engineers are natural bridge builders. To guarantee the delivery of quality in any software project, they should become a standard member of any project.
September 6th 2020
CLaaS... and Nico for friends
This blog is based on a vision document I wrote with Jauco Noordzij on a classification system for SSH infrastructure in the Netherlands in CLARIAH PLUS.
January 24th 2020
Impact on Changing Societies
As we grow closer and more dependent on our technology. It is essential for our changing society that we do not forget to explain and train our machines that they are dealing with humans in all their complexity. The biggest impact social scientists and humanities scholars can have on our future is to help the computational sciences to build a more human AI.
January 24th 2020
CLARIAH and ODISSEI
A strong social science infrastructure is very much in the best interest of the humanities as well. ODISSEI and CLARIAH are complementary. We are partners and competitors.
January 24th 2020
ICT with Industry
OCR is a solved problem, right? Right, if you don't count variety in gothic type, hundreds of years of paper/parchment deterioration, complex layout, bleed-through, several (historical) languages and crooked or warped lines - then yes, I think it is a solved problem.
November 15th 2019
Empathy
Of all the people leading technical innovations, Satya Nadella is one of those I admire most.