A sample excerpt:

RCM: “Will you help me write a little application that calculated bowling scores?”
RSK: “… Sure, Bob, I’d be glad to help. … I used to be a pretty good bowler … “
RCM: “Let’s begin with scoring a single game …”
RSK: “OK, we’re going to need some test data. Let me sketch out a little picture of a scorecard …”
RSK: “Shall we start at the end of the dependency chain and work backward? …”
- A Programming Episode from Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices

This dialog continues for some 40+ pages as we’re walked through a paired programming session demonstrating test driven development and refactoring techniques. Admittedly, while reading these dialogs, I initially thought they were a bit over-the-top (campy), but as I actively listen to the communication happening within my team I realize that these dialogs are happening all around me.

An excerpt from this past week:

Me: “Will you help me write a stored procedure to retrieve the customer’s cart items count and default lightbox items count?”
Dev: “Sure, Adam, I’d be glad to help.”
Me: “Cool! This will be more efficient than aggregating the data from multiple repositories …”

Pull yourself in, that’s right, a little closer to the campfire, now sing it with me, “We all live in a yellow submarine… errr… an Uncle Bob dialog, an Uncle Bob dialog.” :)

The business world is full of “professionals” who wear the uniform and try to seem perfect. In truth, they just come off as stiff and boring. No one can relate to people like that.
Don’t be afraid to show your flaws. Imperfections are real and people respond to real. … Don’t worry about how you’re supposed to act. Show the world what you’re really like, warts and all … talk like you really talk. Reveal things that others are unwilling to discuss. Be upfront about your shortcomings. … You might not seem as professional, but you will seem a lot more genuine. - Rework: Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

I’ve struggled with the personal vs professional tension for sometime. Back in 2002, I started this site with the intention of professional self promotion (image above is my site from 2003). The results were predictable: the tone boring, the topics dry and most visitors saw through the veil of self promotion. I’ve matured since then (well I hope I have). :) Over the years I’ve found that a personal, down-to-earth tone maintains a healthy level of transparency both on the web and in real life. As Gandhi once said:

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

A couple non-traditional considerations when preparing for a software development interview.

Prepare for the Warren Harding Error, Thin Slicing, Snap Judgements, and rapid cognition.

The Warring Harding Error as described by Malcom Gladwell:

Many people who looked at Warren Harding saw how extraordinarily handsome and distinguished-looking he was and jumped to the immediate - and entirely unwarranted - conclusion that he was a man of courage and intelligence and integrity. They didn’t dig below the surface. The way he looked carried so many powerful connotations that it stopped the normal process of thinking dead in its tracks. The Warren Harding error is the dark side of rapid cognition. It is at the root of a good deal of prejudice and discrimination. It’s why picking the right candidate for a job is so difficult and why, on more occasions than we may care to admit, utter mediocrities sometimes end up in positions of enormous responsibility. - Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

As Developers (and Generation X / Yers) we tend to buy into the ideal that “on the internet no one knows your a dog”, an ideal that’s been seared into our minds by Sesame Street and the like. An ideal where sunny days, chase the clouds away, where knowledge, technical skill, and communication should outweigh appearance - a place where being a dog, human, or giant harry elephant should be irrelevant. Unfortunately that’s not reality. Clean up for your interviews, put away those circa Cobain sneakers, and pack in the facial jewelery. Warren Harding (considered one of the worst US presidents) may have been elected based on his appearance. First impressions matter.

Beware of the Interview Anti-Loop

The Interview Anti-Loop as described by Steve Yegge:

when I was at Amazon … We eventually concluded that every single employee E at Amazon has at least one “Interview Anti-Loop”: a set of other employees S who would not hire E. The root cause is important for you to understand when you’re going into interviews, so I’ll tell you a little about what I’ve found over the years.

First, you can’t tell interviewers what’s important … they believe they are a “good interviewer” and they don’t need to change their questions, their question styles, their interviewing style, or their feedback style, ever again. …

Second problem: every “experienced” interviewer has a set of pet subjects and possibly specific questions that he or she feels is an accurate gauge of a candidate’s abilities. The question sets for any two interviewers can be widely different and even entirely non-overlapping. …

The bottom line is, if you go to an interview at any software company, you should plan for the contingency that you might get genuinely unlucky, and wind up with one or more people from your Interview Anti-Loop on your interview loop. If this happens, you will struggle, then be told that you were not a fit at this time, and then you will feel bad. …

And then you should wait 6-12 months and re-apply. That’s pretty much the best solution we (or anyone else I know of) could come up with for the false-negative problem. - Get that job at Google

Don’t Trash Former Employers and Employees

One final bit of advice that’s often overlooked. Avoid talking badly about past employers and coworkers. If you had an unfortunate string of bad career experiences, consider hiring a therapist, or telling your Mom about it. The job interview is not the place to retrace or reflect on past personal struggles, and it’s not the place for trashing former coworkers and employers.

Funny enough. Today, I don’t consider myself a Senior Developer, but a couple years ago I would have told you to “Call me Senior”. Back in those days I may have been a Senior Developer within the monocultured context of the domain, language, and environment I was working with, but certainly not within the larger context of the software realm. I had surrounded myself with homogeneous tools, like minded colleagues, and had fallen into the trap of thinking I was an expert when I wasn’t - we all thought we were Senior Developers.

“When you are not very skilled in some area, you are more likely to think you’re actually pretty expert at it … The converse seems to be true as well; once you truly become an expert, you become painfully aware of just how little you know.” - Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware

Over the years I’ve observed that Experts and true Senior Developers are collectively regarded as such by their peers, not by corporate credentials, not by job titles, or duration of employment. Experts and Senior Developers are more preoccupied with getting things done, improving themselves, improving their environments, and helping others - not worrying about job titles and status.

“The people who are best at programming are the people who realize how small their brains are. They are humble. The people who are the worst at programming are the people who refuse to accept the fact that their brains aren’t equal to the task. Their egos keep them from being great programmers. The more you learn to compensate for your small brain, the better a programmer you’ll be. The more humble you are, the faster you’ll improve.” - Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction

Please, don’t call me a Senior Developer, I’m Mr. Developer or Señor Developer.

remember from school other students preventing you from seeing their answers by placing their arm around their exercise book or exam paper.

It is the same [in the working world] …

The problem with hoarding is you end up living off your reserves. Eventually you’ll become stale.
If you give away everything you have, you are left with nothing. This forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish.

Somehow the more you give away the more comes back to you. - Paul Arden, It’s Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be

I identify with Arden’s philosophy. The creative process is enjoyable. If I’ve had fun producing it, then why not share it? I think our tendencies to hoard, get hung up on copyright, and get picky about attribution stem from our fear of being taken advantage of and the fallacy of thinking we’re special (we’re not special). I think we should throw our code into the public, share our content, give away everything, and watch what comes back.

The painting above was created by Ron Krajewski, based on my photo (licensed under Creative Commons). Ron mailed me a copy of the painting - it’s also available for purchase at Pet Art.

About a year ago I purchased my first ever cellphone (an iPhone) - before the smart phones I’d grab any old freebie phone that came with a multi-year phone contract.

Getting an iPhone was simple enough, but the reactions to owning one have been surprising. Responses have swung from: “Right on! Welcome to the fold!” to “Oh, an iPhone, it’s just a status symbol.”

I will be the first to admit that I’m more likely to whip out my new phone, but did you see my old phone? It was a the size of an Oh Henry! bar, the buttons faded, the screen cracked, and the antenna was a lightning rod - yes that is a picture of my old phone. Sure, I could have been a hero, milked another 5 years out of the old phone, but… I could also give up my washing machine for a washboard, my bike for a horse, and start burning candles. :)

Experts continue to warn of a looming shortage of North American scientists, engineers, developers, and IT workers in general. Efforts like the K-12 CS Model Curriculum attempt to introduce computer science concepts to children as they progress through grade / high school in hopes that they’ll fill this void, but there’s another issue in play. Developers don’t let their children grow up to be programmers.

My hunch is that, most engineers, developer, or related IT professional would rather see their children succeed them - becoming doctors and lawyers and such, not an IT professional.

Malcom Gladwell (in Outliers) presents an interesting account of career progressions within family trees:

In 1982, a sociology graduate student named Louise Farkas went to visit a number of nursing homes and residential hotels [she was looking for] the children of people [who had immigrated] at the turn of the last century. And for each of the people she interviewed, she constructed a family tree showing what a line of parents and children and grandchildren and, in some cases, great-grandchildren did for a living.

Here is her account of “subject #18″:

A Russian tailor artisan comes to America, takes to the needle trade, works in a sweat shop for a small salary. Later takes garments to finish at home with the help of his wife and older children. In order to increase his salary he works through the night. Later he makes a garment and sells it on New York streets. He accumulates some capital and goes into a business venture with his sons. They open a shop to create men’s garments. The Russian tailor and his sons become men’s suit manufacturers supplying several men’s stores The sons and the father become prosperous. The sons’ children become educated professionals.

Farkas’s … family trees go on for pages, each virtually identical to the one before

From my observations, many developers / IT workers are first generation middle class, first generation post secondary educated, immigrants, or all of the above (myself included). Being a developer or IT professional is a small step up the ladder in helping our successors succeed.

If these talkers and grumblers were on the internet they’d most certainly be on Twitter or have a blog.

Algorithm Analysis (Asymptotic Complexity / Big O Notation) courses are the bane of computer science students everywhere. These courses were mandatory, dry, and lacked real world pragmatism for students who just wanted to get stuff done. Well, that’s what we told ourselves; that’s the theory we presented to our friends - we were convinced that framework vendors or the hoogie-boogie man would figure out the most efficient way to performance tune / compile our code. We looked to Sun, Microsoft, or IBM to figure out the details. In truth we were lazy-naive students and Algorithm Analysis was tougher than we’d like to admit - much harder than programming in 4th generation programming languages, more difficult than computer theory, or operating system theory.

As I brush up Algorithm Analysis I found these perspectives interesting:

to be a good programmer, you just program ever day for two years … to be a world-class programmer, you can program every day for ten years, or you can program every day for two years and take an algorithms class - Introduction - Analysis of Algorithms, Insertion Sort, Mergesort

Having a solid base of algorithmic knowledge and technique is one characteristic that separates the truly skilled programmers from the novices. With modern computing technology, you can accomplish some tasks without knowing much about algorithms, but with a good background in algorithms, you can do much, much more - Introduction to Algorithms, Second Edition

It’s unfortunate that our professors never mentioned that Algorithm Analysis would be an integral part of academic type interviews and a prerequisite for getting a job at Google, but then again who would have listened?

The most popular conception of creativity is that it’s something to do with the arts.

Nonsense. - Paul Arden, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Wan’t To Be.

This year marks a new decade for me (I’m saying goodbye to the late 20’s). According to Arden’s Creative Circle this blog was written during my era of Maturity and for the next 10 years I’ll be Hell Bent On Success. Thanks for putting up with my growing pains and griping.

Today I do find my work fun, but I couldn’t have got here without the experience I gained while plowing through boring jobs (like working the assembly line, tree planting, or digging outhouse pits). In order to find the job you love you need to start gaining experience now.

Like a straight ‘A’ student you’ll find me upfront and center, pencil in hand, when someone describes the traits of my demographic group. I fall somewhere in the Generation X / Y / Millennial demographic group (the boundary varies widely depending on what source you cite). I mean let’s face it, who doesn’t like to read about how our droogs are perceived? Wait a … this could be another manifestation of Generation X / Y / Millennial narcissism others have been writing about. Crap!

When hearing about the traits of our demographic group, I question how unique the traits associated with our group are. It seems that these traits could be common knowledge to smart people everywhere (regardless of demographic segmentation), but then again, this could be my squeaky Generation X / Y / Millennial voice discounting the other demographics (yet again).

I thought Andy Hunt had an accurate description for our demographic:

[Generation Xers are] free agents, with an inherent distrust of institutions … Fiercely individualistic, and perhaps a bit on the dark side, they’ll just quit and move on if there’s a problem at work. They resist being labeled at all costs … They are quite pragmatic, working for a positive outcome regardless of any particular ideology or approach. - Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware

I’d agree, an inherent distrust of institutions is a common trait in our demographic. It could be that we’re immature and this tendency could wane as we grow older, or it could be a permanent scar stemming from our observations - many of us watched our elders (some with perceived jobs-for-life) jaded and unemployed in the 80’s, then living through the uncertainly that prevailed in the following years.

Others have mentioned that we:

would prefer to work for companies that give them opportunities to contribute their talents to nonprofit organizations. - Volunteering as a Benefit

But then again, who wouldn’t like to work for company that encouraged contributions to nonprofits and pet projects?

Yet others have noted that we:

demand to be communicated to in a direct, honest and transparent way … are “‘immediate driven” and quite keen to live their lives right now, rather than adhering to the old Protestant work ethic that suggests you can only reap the rewards of life after you have worked hard and basically sold your soul to your employer. - How to turn on Generation Y

Yup, that sounds fair. We expect transparency in the age of information. Continuing with that thought, it’s also been said that:

[we] view time as a currency … not to be wasted … They want to get the job done, then put it behind them and enjoy life. - Retaining youth

Again, seems a bit obvious. We’re not lazy, but we’ve seen our elders do a lot of weird stuff as they go through their midlife crisis - maybe if they didn’t put off living in the name of work they would have maintained more sanity.

It’s also been said that we:

prefer to dress as casual as possible and work with mobile gadgets or laptops in comfortable, creative spaces. - CareerNews: Tuesday, May 22, 2007

What demographic group doesn’t like to be comfortable while working? Our attire should be an extension of workplace ergonomics - we’re told to lift heavy object with your legs (not your back), and use ergonomically correct equipment. Wearing comfortable clothes and using gadgets should be a natural extension. :)

In general, I think our generation strives to work smarter (not necessarily longer hours), we try to atain a healthy work-life balance, and a number of us value experiences over owning stuff. I think smart people from other demographics have been doing the same things for years, but what do I know, I’m just another Generation X / Y / Millennial.

I found the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition neat. It’s a central theme throughout Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt.

Here’s how Wikipedia describes the Dreyfus Model:

The Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition postulates that when individuals acquire a skill through external instruction, they normally pass through five stages. … the five stages of skill acquisition are: Novice, Advanced beginner, Competent, Proficient and Expert - Dreyfus model of skill acquisition

We have different skills and are at different stages simultaneously in each skill - for example, someone might be an Expert at underwater basket weaving and a Novice at cooking. As we cultivate our experience we progress through these stages.

The categories (again, from Wikipedia) are as follows:

1. Novice
   • rigid adherence to rules
   • no discretional judgment
2. Advanced beginner
   • situational perception still limited
   • all aspects of work are treated separately and given equal importance
3. Competent
   • coping with crowdedness (multiple activity, information)
   • now partially sees action as part of longer term goals
   • conscious , deliberate planning
4. Proficient
   • holistic view of situation, rather than in terms of aspects
   • sees what is most important in a situation
   • uses maxims for guidance, meaning of maxims may vary according to situation
5. Expert
   • no longer reliant on rules, guidelines, maxims
   • intuitive grasp of situation, based on tacit knowledge
   • vision of what is possible

Presented with these categories we can draw some parallels with the software realm. Like say, create a list of events that you’d most likely find these different categories of software developers hanging out.

Developer Event Attendance and Developer Skill Categories:

1. Vendor or Technology Specific: User Groups / Code Camps / Corporate Training / Evangelistic Events
   • Many Novices
   • Many Advanced beginners
   • A small number of Competents that are transitioning to Proficients
   • Proficients and Experts might be leading the group or may have been mandated to go by their organization
2. Open Book Clubs / Non Specific Technology Meetings / Non Specific Bar Camp Type Events
   • Mostly Competents, Proficients, and Experts

Of course, this is just my opinion. I’ve noticed that my attendance to the events listed above continually shift. Initially I thought I was becoming a curmudgeon, but instead I shifted a couple Dreyfus categories.

I found Andy Hunt’s description of Sheep Dip Training funny:

A sheep dip is a large tank in which you dunk the unsuspecting sheep to clean them up and rid them of parasites. The sheep line up; you grab one and dunk it in the tank … It wears off, of course, so you have to dip them again.

Sheep dip training follows the same model. You lineup unsuspecting employees, dunk them in an intensive, three-to-five day event … and proclaim them to be Java developers, .NET developers, or what have you. It wears off, of course, so next year you need to have a “refresher” course - another dip.

Companies love standardized “sheep dip” training … There’s only one drawback. This naive approach doesn’t work … - Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life … I think Perfectionism is based on an obsessive belief that if you run careful enough … you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people [are going to] have a lot more fun [than you] … -  Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Where did the term ‘bug’ originate?

According to Phil Factor:

The word ‘bug’ actually is short for Bugbear, sometimes found as Bugaboo. The meaning is much closer to ‘Gremlin’, where the people who worked on engineering prototypes often grew to suspect that the problems were due to malicious spooks. I sometimes still hear it said that a particular piece of software is cursed with malicious spirits. The ‘Bug’ or ‘Bogey’ part of the word is traceable back to the fifteenth century in the meaning of ‘Hobogoblin’, devil or ghost. … the word ‘Bugbear’, first recorded in the sixteenth century, is still used in referring to problems with machinery. - Confessions of an IT Manager, Phil Factor

How many bug types can you name off?

Wikipedia lists six types of bugs: Heisenbugs, Bohrbugs, Mandelbugs, Schroedinbugs, Phase of the Moon bugs, and Statistical bugs.

Which music should you listen to while squishing software bugs?

The Bug Song by Canada’s Stompin’ Tom Connors of course.

Bugs Bugs Bugs, If I had them all in jugs
I’d dig dig dig, till a big big hole was dug dug dug dug–
And that would be the end of the bug song…repeat

I once had a strong aversion to Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, pick the site of the week, …) but today I embrace it. In the old days, I thought these sites were silly, a waste of time, and preferred to spend more of my time pursuing technical / academic activities. In retrospect, I think I was feeling insecure in my technical abilities (placing to much focus on technical pursuits), I probably thought I had a boring life (and thought everyone else was bragging about theirs), and I certainly misunderstood the fundamentals of Social Media (somehow I thought being part of the conversation meant I had to consume everything).

I eventually realized that Social Media is a lot like TV. TV is overwhelmed with commercials and mediocre shows, the content is hard to find. When I watch TV (if I watch TV) I mute the commercials, flip through the channels looking for something interesting, and multitask (magazine, laptop, …). In the end TV is a leisure activity, I don’t try watching every channel (I know I can’t) and don’t pay attention to the advertisements. I do the same thing on Social Media sites too. I don’t pay attention to every post (I can’t) and I don’t pay attention to self promotion, promotions, or advertisements.

Today I embrace Social Media because it lets me participate in the conversation, share my opinion, connect with friends and family, and be an active part of our world. Oh yeah, and it’s fun too!

“Don’t be shy … or nobody will know you’re there” - Yusuf Islam / Cat Stevens

I joined the HP Pavilion tx1000 drop dead club last month. Apparently the tx1xxx models of the HP Pavilion laptops have an issue with the NVIDIA chip frying the CPU hamsters (melting the solder on the motherboard) - I’m not really sure about the technical details, but a broken laptop is bad news.

Whatever happened it first killed my wireless, then the machine wouldn’t turn on (black screen, no BIOS, no boot). However; I’m writing this post from the same defective laptop. That’s right folks! I did NOT have to find a penny older than 1982, I did NOT have to dismantle and cook the computer under a halogen lamp for 5 minutes. Instead I…

How to fix your tx1xxx laptop:

• Put your laptop on a firm grounding like the floor, counter, or sturdy table
• Placed your right elbow on the enter key and push down hard
• Pull on the opposite side of the laptop casting until you hear creaking (while pushing on the enter key with your right elbow)

I heard creaking and crunching as I physically bent the case (and the motherboard I’m sure). Now, aside from a crack in the case and a still defunct wireless card I’m temporarlily back in business - and in active search of a replacement laptop.

I’ll give any company or product a chance, but quality and user experience is the deciding factor. I doubt that I’d purchase another HP machine, but I now have an excuse to get a Mac!

As an entry level developer I thought professional meant:

• talking incessantly about technology (hiding my personal life behind shop talk)
• dressing up for my cubical (wearing polyester dress pants, cotton dress shirts to work, and occasionally ties)
• focusing on things that can be proven (giving little concern to interpersonal relationships or the general untestable messiness surrounding softskills)
• writing the FASTEST CODE EVER (I was sidtracked with premature optimizations)
• I tried to be a programming machine (working 29 hours a day)
• becoming a Microsoft Most Valueable Professional (MVP)

Those ideas were skewed and I was running the risk of becoming a bit of a douche.

Today I think professionalism means:

• being comfortable in your own skin
• being able to delegate tasks within a team
• being an effective member of a team (not participating in gossip, back talk, or other activities that erode a team)
• being transparent
• maintaining a work / life balance
• choosing the best tool for the task

It’s funny how experience can change perspectives. I wonder what my definition of professionalism will be in five years?

This begs for the question: how different are the developers that award themselves the title of Software Architect from George? How is it that someone can have a resume that reads developer, developer one week then next month reads architect, architect? Are we so insecure in our livelihood that we need to inflate out roles?  Anyone can claim to be an architect, and being one rarely means the same thing across organizations, doesn’t require certification, and some architects appear to live in ivory towers (tend to live in fantasy worlds like George). Has the title of Software Architect become synonymous to being Full of Baloney? If George didn’t switch careers and become a hand model he probably would have started pretending to be a Software Architect too. :)

The plan was to sell domain names, web hosting, and deliver websites to my clients - a one-stop-shop of sorts. I’d frequently obsess over the idea and smatter my coworkers, and friends (actually, anyone that would listen) with my fantastic ideas. I was obsessed. By obsessed, I mean, I obnoxiously sent out weekly (sometimes daily) emails containing mindmaps, and reams of links - all while maintaining a wiki bursting with my exceptionally mediocre ideas. :) I purchased reseller accounts, hosting plans - nothing was stopping me! Now that I think of it, obsessive tendencies probably run in my family - to this day my Mother vacuums her house three times a day, sure there were 11 people in our family and things got messy, but three times a day!! Try watching TV with the vacuum running three times a day It’s enough to make you quit TV and take up programming. Anyhow, during the time of my obsession, a couple senior coworkers gently suggested that I need more experience. I remember thinking:

Man, I’ve already been through school, I have an freak’n edumacation. I’m building sweet programs. How much more experience do I need?

Of course they were right. Since then, every year / month / day has brought heaps of new knowledge and experience - experience is one of those things that can only be acquired with time. My idea of the one-stop-shop crumbled when I realized that I couldn’t compete with discount hosting like GoDaddy / Dreamhost. I also realized that I enjoyed working in teams on large web applications rather than solo projects. Today I’ll occasionally meet an obsessive CEO, I’ll offer some advice, and smile. Good ideas tend to be self evident - they don’t require wikis and link farms to convince people. If you can execute your idea (develop it yourself) then your personal passion and drive will contribute to it’s success or at least provide you with irreplaceable experience - even if it is a hair brained idea.

If you’re interested, I still have the reseller account which offers reasonable domain discounts. Thanks to all my friends who tolerated me through those growing pains. :)

Content matters, design doesn’t: Subscribers read your blog through RSS readers. Content is key, twitter widgets, plug-ins, and badges are self serving - they matter more to the blogger than their audience. If readers desire a more granular need-to-know-you level of information, then chances are that they already stalking you. If you’re a graphic designer then aesthetics do matter.

Debriefings on local events without a unique personal voice are lame (actually, anything without a personal voice is lame): Most subscribers skim, they seek out information and move on. Well written articles with a unique personal voice continue to draw me in. Information about the number of people who showed up, what you ate, or the decor of the venue are minor details. Seriously, I’ll email you if I’m interested.

Subjectivity is interesting: Reading / writing / learning is about considering alternative views and new opinions, there’s always a degree of subjectivity - nothing is absolute.

Some authors are always right, which is always wrong: A blogger’s blog is their domain, but it’s distasteful when an author defends their posts in an attempt to save face (to appear right all the time). Sharing opinions publicly is about collaboration, and validation, not being right or wrong.

Gary Vaynerchuk offers this piece of advice:

The only way to succeed now is to be completely transparent, everything is exposed, everything you do - Gary Vaynerchuk

For most web / knowledge workers, transparency is key to cultivating an online presence - today, your online presence (your Google search results) is your resume, everything you do online is fair game - your search results (or lack of results) generally reflect whether you're an overall good-person, experienced, or a bit outdated.

A reassessment: last month the faltering economy finally hit home - I was out of work. While search for a new job, I was surprised that most potential employers (nearly all) were looking me up on Google. From Google they'd land on my blog, my Twitter account, flickr, and so on. In one of my interviews I was told of an unfortunate candidate that had questionable content and photos online - this was a deciding factor in his no-hire decision. This had me feeling a little uncomfortable and begged for a reassessment of my level of transparency.

Randy Pausch once said:

I'll [hire] an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short-term, earnest is long term - Randy Pausch

I echo Randy's sentiments. If you're an earnest, authentic, and good natured person, then transparency can be a huge asset. You should be exposing everything you do! Well… maybe not everything, there's little value in knowing what you ate for lunch, or when you're sleeping / awake - practicing some self moderation and making use of your inner monologue is recommended, because excessive transparency can bleed into white noise.

no matter what remember the web is NOT Las Vegas. What happens on the web does NOT stay on the web. I'll bet this guy wishes he'd have remembered that. - Arcanecode, Guard your credibility

With applications like Twitter and Facebook it's easier than ever to be transparent, but do we run the risk of being too transparent? How much is too much?

Over the past couple months I had the pleasure of working in a Java shop. Up to this point I've spent most of my time in the .NET realm. Working with Java was a great chance to experience the similarities and contrasts between environments, cultures, and web application implementations. Here are a couple of my observations.

Java developers are more knowledgeable than the typical .NET developer. Java developers tend to gravitate towards complexity, Linux, UNIX, open source, and continuous learning. They are less familiar with the wizards and drag-n-drop style development that often characterize .NET development. The Java developers I worked with didn't depend on a single unified IDE (like Visual Studio), instead each developer chose their text editor / environment (Emacs, Eclipse, TextMate, E-TextEditor, and jEdit were all being used on a single project). Each developer was responsible for being productive with their editor; and took responsibility for learning shortcuts, and other performance enhancing techniques. This broad use of editors placed an emphasis on the core command line tools which ensured that developers knew how the application was put together, and cultivated broad application troubleshooting skills within the team.

Unified IDEs (like Visual Studio or Eclipse) do not result in faster development, better developers do. Developers empowered with the ability to choose their development environment / text editors / operating system resulted in more passion and responsibility. Informal friendly rivalry between editor users drove development faster while providing diversity within the work place.  

Programming languages and technology stacks don't matter to experienced software developers. As a developer it's easy to become a fanboy of languages or technologies stacks, but… they don't matter - writing good software within the bounds of our project do. There's no reason to be tied to a specific language or technology stack. Sure, languages fall into a specific category (dynamic, static, classical inherited, prototypical inherited) but programming languages are very similar.

Steve McConnell has been saying this all along:

mastering more than one language is often a watershed in the career of a professional programmer. Once a programmer realizes that programming principles transcend the syntax of any specific language, the doors swing open to knowledge that truly makes a difference in quality and productivity. - Steve McConnell, Code Complete 2nd Edition

Don’t write frameworks for dummies. [Frameworks designed by organizations] that assume some developers are not smart enough … are likely to fail because they underestimate the difficulty of … development. … This attitude also poisons the relationship between [the developers and framework designer]. - Eric Evans, Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software

Evans goes on to make the point that there’s a fine line between designing for dummies, and providing useful encapsulation / abstraction. I found this advice interesting because I had been wrestling with whether the ASP.NET AJAX Framework is for Dummies.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. - Mohandas Gandhi

These books set the tone for my perspective in this new year.

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson) emphasizes that, as humans we rarely know what we're doing - our existence as a species on this earth is a tiny fraction of time, but we continue to kill ourselves while obliterating other species and our environment. This book was also a great reminder that the greatest innovators and inventors are individuals with a burning passion - not individuals with a laundry list of formal qualifications.

The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (Thomas L. Friedman) argues that, we can't accept complacency in our jobs or careers - the world has changed and you'll be left behind. Bureaucracy on every level may save your job today, but this won't be the case in an increasingly global world. As individuals our careers and future are solely our responsibility - we should be versatilitsts, not specialists.

The Age of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management (Art Kleiner, et el) demonstrate that, most corporations / business / organization don't really know what they're doing (MBA theory is based on the past, and not entirely relevant for the future). Many successful businesses have been run by heretics - people who understood the system around them, then push the limits of these systems to provide more value, innovate, and become successful. Also, that success is almost entirely dependent on people, teams, integrity, honesty, and the relationships that ensue.

The Last Lecture (by Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow), is a sober reminder that living life to the fullest and living a good life are what really matters. Also, that: “engineering isn't about perfect solutions; it's about doing your best with limited resources” - Randy Pausch.

Cheers to another great year as we continue to gaining broader perspectives, seek out a better quality of life, get out and do more things, meet new people, and cultivate existing relationships. :)

It feels like Web Standards have always just existed, but they’ve only been around since the 90’s. Today, they’re the default for cross-browser compatible web applications. However; some people still like to talk them down - fingers are pointed at ambiguities within the written specifications, imperfections, and various edge cases between browser implementations (most of which can thankfully be resolved through test suites and browser vendor collaboration). Today, if you’re not embracing Web Standards, then you’re missing a bigger point.

The importance of Web Standards lies in its unified language. Web Standards offer a common paradigm, a starting point, they’re intended to be built upon / extended, and (like everything else we’ve created as a species) they’re not perfect. Web Standards and the Object Paradigm (Object Oriented Design / Object Oriented Programming) share these similarities. Eric Evans describes the value of the Object Paradigm to be its widespread adoption, not its technical superiority:

Today, the object paradigm also has some significant circumstantial advantages deriving from its maturity and widespread adoption … Objects are already understood by a community of thousands of developers, project managers, and all the other specialists involved in project work. - Eric Evans, Domain Driven Design

On a similar thought Bill Bryson describes the dark ages of chemistry - before standardized conventions and the periodic table was formed:

chemists for so long worked in isolation, conventions were slow to emerge. Until well into the second half of the century … Chemists also used a bewildering variety of symbols and abbreviations, often self invented … Despite the occasional tidying-up, chemistry by the second half of the century was in something of a mess … [Mendeleyev] began toying with a way to arrange the elements … thanks to Mendeleyev’s invention [the periodic table], chemistry was now on a firm footing. - Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

Today, Web Standards are understood by a community of thousands of developers, designers, project managers, and most of the other specialists involved in web work. Web Standards are our firm footing. Web Standards aren’t about being perfect, they’re about a common language, about working collectively towards (or at least embracing) a goal. Web Standards are here to stay.

Our postulation wasn’t earth shattering by any means. Basically we were reiterating that: if you already know how to do it right (or at least righter than the alternatives), then do it right the first time. Developing cross browser compatible web sites using web standards jumps to my mind as another example - a cross browser site is trivial if you’ve had a previous success. This idea extends well beyond software. Experienced professionals like Mike Holmes (from the construction industry) runs his organization (Make it Right) on this very idea.

If you’re going to do something, do it right the first time - Mike Holmes 

Some people advocate frequent backups - and some go so far as to suggest making use of offsite storage, duplicating their DVD/CD collections, and so on. This fixation on personal data redundancy seems multi-compulsive for an individual or a family (running a company is obviously a different situation).

I personally do not have a data backup plan - aside from online storage like Google Docs, Flickr (for photos and videos), and source control. I have lost years worth of files a number of times, and every time my hard drive comes screeching to a halt, I feel that burning pit of anxiety deep in my stomach, but guess what? It doesn't last long. Seriously, over the years there has never been a case where I lost something that I absolutely needed (again, personal pictures and videos are an exception). After losing data, I find myself pining for a couple recently created / used files, I then recreate the files in a quarter the time it took me to do the first version, then I forget about the heaps of digital baggage I was hording over the years.

Personal data loss might be part of a natural regeneration process - like a forest fire, it makes way for new growth and forces us to focus on the present.

Stop fighting nature, forget about a data backup plan, involuntary random data purging might be good for all of us. Perhaps a digital natural disaster is in order for you. :)

Can you let go of your bits? What is your backup strategy? Why do you backup?

The Law of Two Feet is just as applicable to life, as it is to Open Spaces.

The Law of Two Feet:

If at any time during our time together you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet. Go to some other place where you may learn and contribute. - Open Spaces, Wikipedia

By applying this philosophy to software development (programming languages, operating systems, and development ecosystems), I’ve really been been re-igniting my passion as a software developer. I am foremost a software developer and the tools and products I choose are secondary, but I lost sight of this over the past couple years. I was buying into being a [insert your choice of ecosystem, language, operating system here] developer.

Anyhow; this isn’t to say I won’t be raising my concerns (running away), I’ll continue to make noise (because I believe it has value), but when change doesn’t manifest. I will (like so many people before me) use my own two feet and move towards a situation where I can continue to learn, contribute, and be the change I’d like to see .

Like a horse with blinders on, avoiding some degree of Big Design Up Front (BDUF) can force your team and project into tunnel vision, because… If you don’t look at what you’re building in its entirety, it is harder to see the big picture, to have to that ah-hah moment that leads to a break through, to maintain conceptual integrity, or have a successful project.

I worked on a project where we attempted evolutionary design (avoiding Big Design Up Front) while taking an Agile approach. We used Continuous Integration, and Test Driven Development. Looking back, our attempt at trying to avoid Big Design Up Front was fatal for our project’s success and probably our biggest mistake. The funny thing is, the only reason we avoided BDUF was because it seemed non-Agile (note the capital ‘A‘ in ‘Agile’ read Yegge’s post Good Agile, Bad Agile for the reference). As a development team we were inexperienced Agile (eXtreme Programming) teenagers and somewhere along the way we exchanged our brains for dogma.

eXtreme Programming [is at odds with] “Big Design, Up Front” (BDUF) _ Because “Ya Ain’t Gonna Need It” (YAGNI) … [but this is often] taken as permission to not do any planning - Gerard Meszaros’ Alberta TechFest slide deck ‘07

In the past Big Design Up Front (BDUF) was associated with large inflexible architectural solutions that are designed upfront (before development begins) - like the waterfall methodology. However; BDUF (like most techniques / methodologies / tools) are quite useful when used with a sprinkle of common sense and moderation. BDUF can be a productive lightweight tool for fleshing out the high level overview of a system. It is important to note that I’m not advocating Big Architectural Design Up Front which is often composed of reams of documents, UML, ERDs, diagrams, and other unneeded artifacts. Instead I’m advocating for paper based story boards, wire frames, paper prototypes, user stories - anything that is easy to create, destroy, and recreate. These techniques provide the foundation of the final product, they start to verbalize the common product goal and can start to draw out the language, metaphors, and model that will eventually compose the project.

Avoiding some Design Up Front was a mistake for our project. As a team we were trying to cope with the complexities of our domain under very tight deadlines. Our code became increasingly brittle, we had overlooked obvious shared functionality that a high level overview would have fleshed out. At the same time we had segregated our application into sprint sized silos with no clear relationships - each sprint was essentially a two week tunnel, and disconnected.

Without some form of BDUF it was difficult to:

• maintain conceptual integrity, a common goal, a consistent user interface
• estimate the whole product cost
• have a successful project

We should have headed Steve McConnell’s words:

people were claiming,  “I don’t have to do requirements or design because I’m using object-oriented programming.” That was just an excuse. Most of those people weren’t really doing object-oriented programming-they were hacking, and the results were predictable, and poor. Right now, people are saying “I don’t have to do requirements or design because I’m doing agile development.” Again, the results are easy to predict, and poor - Steve McConnell, Code Complete

Or perhaps Martin Fowler’s suggestion:

the planned design approach has been around since the 70s, and lots of people have used it. It is better in many ways than code and fix evolutionary design. But it has some faults. - Martin Fowler, Is Design Dead?

Not doing some Design Up Front is probably another excuse for being sloppy, but what do you think?

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. - Confucius

In the IT world the debate over the value of formal education vs the school of hard knocks (real life experience) has been waging for a long-long time. I’m biased towards the education side of the debate to some degree, and here’s why I think having a formal education is important.

It’s easier to work or migrate to foreign countries
With a University education (regardless of discipline) it’s easier to obtain work and long stay Visas in foreign countries. Candidates with a formal education can move through the Visa process quicker and in some cases those without degrees are bared entirely from obtaining a Visa. While I don’t think these restrictions are fair, unfortunately it seems to be the global statuesque.

Job security, and increased marketability
When an employer chooses between two candidates for a position, experience often trumps education, but an educated candidate with experience can trump both - education and experience is the best of both worlds. In addition, as an junior / intermediate some employers will bill you out at a higher rate based on education, and some clients feel more confident with certificates and education - both factors increase your marketability.

A strong core, a long term personal investment
I attended Community College before University. While attending Community College some of my friends were enrolled in Computer Science at the University level. These friends would talk of fascinating things like: assembly language, processor registers, paging tables, and abstract data types. Sure my Computer Science friends were immersed heavily in theory, but I was immersed in the practical side of programming (without the theory) - I felt that I was missing out and was envious of their University education. After completing University, I found that the process of working through University helped me cultivate my ideas, understand the basics of computation, draw other disciplines into my work, and relate with the larger world. Today, I think of my University education as the center (hub) of a bicycle wheel - all the spokes branch out, but they all start at the center (this center being the core, the theory of the computer / software world). Sure, we can learn the theory on our own, but working through a conventional program with assignments and with instructors that continue to push you, enforces rigor and promotes personal growth (for myself anyways).

There are no recipes for success and formal education is not the end all - although every advantage helps in our increasingly globally competitive world. To this day, I’ve only been asked for proof of my education on two occasions: once while applying for a Japanese Working Visa, and the other while considering a position in the US (I’m a Canadian). To anyone considering a B.Sc in Computer Science or going to University, I recommend it over experience - it is a long term investment.

The most interesting courses at school were my non Computer Science courses (the comp sci courses were pretty easy since the instructors depended heavily on code samples and textbooks), and Stephen Regoczei’s course on Digital Multimedia tops my list for being the most interesting and inspirational course.

I usually picked my summer course while tree planting since most of the course syllabuses were online, but Regoczei’s course (aside from a vague 200 word blurb that the course digital multimedia related topics) had little information.

I emailed Regoczei requesting a syllabus and received a reply along the lines of:

Due to socioeconomic reasons, I do not respond to my email.

His course was ironically about communicating, the internet, and digital media, but yet he wouldn’t respond to email?! This was weird! I signed up for his course, I was intrigued.

On the first day of class, I sat near the front - but not in the front row (I was trying really-really hard not to be too geeky). Like most students in the class - I was clueless to who this Regoczei character was. Ten minutes after the class was scheduled to start we still didn’t have a professor, and students started leaving. Minutes later, a man who looked like he could be our professor walked through the door, but he then sat down among the students took off his jacket, took off his shoes, and the class waited a couple more minutes. The man who could have been our professor, started striking conversations with those around him, then stood up and walked to the front of the class, and introduced himself in a strong foreign accent as Stephan Regoczei - he was our professor.

With a series of five chalkboards available to him, and a full class, Regoczei would start jotting his notes on the middle black board, he’d then move left (not right as one might expect) to the next board, then back to the middle board. Then to the bottom left corner of the middle board, to the top right corner, filling in any empty space with his notes. He never touched the left or right most blackboards, but instead created a jumbled nest of notes that were impossible to follow if you hadn’t been taking notes. Regoczei often hedged around answering assignment / test related questions, instead he assured us that we would either “get it” or “not get it”, but he would say that he felt we were smart enough to “get it”. Over the first few weeks students would occasionally storm out of the class as they were obviously frustrated with his unconventional approach to teaching. When students did storm out he’d giggle and make funny remarks like “I guess they won’t ‘get it’, they must have been in the wrong class”.

The marking structure for this class was as unconventional as his teaching style - which had many students griping (I think some were on the verge of starting a petition to try and have him fired). The assignments weren’t hard, but they were extremely open ended which made you think. One assignment was along the lines of “present four topics in the Media that you found interesting”. Submissions in the form of a four page essay consistently scored lower than a single sheet of paper filled with bullet points and hand drawn color pictures. At the end of the course most of the students that “got it” had abandoned their pens and computers for paint, scissors, and pencil crayons. On my final exam I used a pair of scissors to turn my exam book into a pop-out, and had answered every question with a different colored pencil crayon.

In retrospect Regoczei really forced his students to think outside the box in a conventional setting - if we didn’t think outside the box we received a poor mark. For me, he demonstrated that if you understand the constraints of your environment, then you can play within these rules and thrive as you change the rules. Today I’d label Regoczei as a heretic.

Regoczei’s course also promoted a great sense of community - the first 45 minutes of his class were dedicated to a media show-and-tell where students could show an exciting product, or bring up an article for discussion. In a couple discussions we debated whether the oil slicks (highways) covering our country were worse than the oil spilling into the oceans and the emissions in our air, or how antiques featured on the antique road show can maintain value whereas mass produced replicas were cheapening our world, and we had ongoing conversations on quality vs quantity. In addition to the discussions, his extremely open ended assignments forced the class to come together and compare their marks and assignment strategies in an effort to figure out his bazaar marking scheme.

Today I think Regoczei’s main points were (but I’m not sure, and every student walked away with different ideas):

• You need to think outside the box in order to be successful
• We should question everything
• People that can get beyond conventional thinking will never need to look for a job, because the jobs will always find them
• There is a world of difference between “Kiddie” computing (Microsoft based PCs) and “Grown up” computing (unix, linux, macs, anything else)

This course along, with my discussion based English seminars were the most exciting, inspirational, and though provoking courses at Trent University. These were the courses that really taught me how to learn, inspired me, and left me hungry to continue learning, reading, writing, thinking, and growing.

This quote from Arden’s book reminded me of Regoczei’s approach to teaching:

Good marks will not secure you an interesting life.
Your imagination will. - Paul Arden, Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite

What inspirational teachers have you had in the past?

I WANT MEANS if I want it enough I will get it.
Getting what you want means making the decisions you need to make to get what you want.
Not the decisions those around you should make.
Making the safe decision is dull predictable and leads nowhere new.
The unsafe decision causes you to think and respond in a way you hadn’t thought of.
And that thought will lead to other thoughts which will help you achieve what you want.
Start making bad decisions and it will take you to a place where others only dream of being. - Paul Arden, Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite

In one of my previous posts I said that I wanted more passion in my work - I want to be a happy satisfied developer (to use the tools, editors, frameworks, computers, and languages that make me happy). After publishing those thoughts, I wondered if I was being self centered - I kept thinking: “maybe I should just be happy with where I am? People are in worse situations right?” Then Arden comes along and offers that bit of encouragement.

We only live once, happiness and passion is important, I can’t settle for mediocracy. I continue to want.

“If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all” is bad advice and here's why.

During the process of discussing something not nice we develop a vocabulary to express our discomfort with the item in question. Once we've developed this vocabulary we can then communicate our concerns within our community - the chances are, others probably share these concerns / frustrations, but they might not have developed the vocabulary. The community discussions might result in a resolution to the problem, or may be ignored, but at least you can feel satisfied that you tried.

It's kind of like that one person during a lesson / presentation / lecture that asks the exact same question you were thinking, when the question is presented a whole new slew of questions are asked as the class engages in discussion.

Conversely, saying nothing, does nothing, you remain isolated, and your concerns / questions / frustrations are permanent.

Speak your mind, you only live once, and most of us can accept that your ideas today will differ in the future - we change. More companies / people / organizations should take feedback as a compliment and encourage discussion.

GUY KAWASAKI: Okay. … so it was like in the ashtray of your Lexus?
STEVE BALLMER: I’m a Ford guy, and I’m slightly offended by that. My father who worked for Ford would be offended, but nonetheless …

Fair enough, Ballmer likes Ford, but what kills me is that he apparently made his choice by association. Like Ballmer, my extended family are (were) also employed by Ford in the US Rust Belt. However, I still value quality and the economics of a purchase over my family affiliations. Of course, this is a broader issue - many people favour historical affiliation / brand loyalty over critical thinking and this may never change, but Ballmer is the CEO of Microsoft!

Now Ford, GM, Chrysler are on the verge of bankruptcy, and while many factors contribute to their situation. I think most people agree that these automakers kept making poor decisions for short term revenue gains - they kept making bigger expensive, less efficient cars, they were inward focuses and failed to look at possible future scenarios (like a global economic recession, skyrocketing oil prices, doomsday, blah-blah-blah). Basically, the big three automakers have been out of touch with the rest of the world. People like me (and probably you too) have never owned a domestic car. For myself, imports offered better value for my money (better fuel efficiency, a higher resale value, and a longer life). In addition, imports felt safer, sturdier, and were more aesthetically pleasing. Imports offered quality over quantity, and they looked nice too - imports made me a happy satisfied consumer.

Like the big three automakers, Microsoft (or Ballmer at least) is out of touch with their community (their developers). For myself, the community oriented / collaborative communities outside Microsoft are continually drawing me in. The openness of these communities and their open solutions is one part of the interest, but I’m also growing tired of working in an ecosystem (and with developers) that literally lag years behind the rest of the software world. Down here in the trenches Microsoft centric developers bear a striking resemblance to the unionized American autoworkers - inflexible, arrogant, and inward focused.

I want a development stack I can be proud of, that embraces quality over quantity, to work with developers that share my values, and an environment that offers more aesthetics. In short I want to be a happy satisfied developer.

In all fairness, it’s great how Microsoft is opening up (i.e. IronRuby, IronPython, MVC, etc…), but there are already more open established and mature communities outside Microsoft. I also really like C#, WCF, ASP.NET MVC, and Server 2008, but it’s all the baggage associated with the Microsoft ecosystem. It’s also fair to mention that the ALT.NET community is making great strides, but it is fundamentally discouraging that ALT.NET had to be formed in the first place. I mean, where are all the ALT.Rails, ALT.Ruby, ALT.Linux, ALT.Java communities?!

good programmers tend to cluster in some organizations, and bad programmers tend to cluster in other organizations … (Demarco and Lister 1999). - Steve McConnell

Can we draw the corollary that:

Good programmers tend to cluster away from traditionally closed development ecosystems like Microsoft, and bad programmers tend to cluster toward Microsoft like ecosystems?

Following Robert Glass’s train of thought:

The most important factor in software work is not the tools and techniques used by the programmers, but rather the quality of the programmers themselves. - Robert Glass, Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering

Could we conclude that:

Good programmers tend to realize that an investment in their personal development is more important than learning the latest tools? Are product / tool based ecosystems like Microsoft’s at direct odds with the core values of a good programmer?

My hunch is that exceptional developers are versatilists. These developers cluster around organizations that embrace knowledge over tools, open technologies, open communities, and these great organizations also embrace vernacular culture. What do you think?

Try not to wast too much of your time reading [blogs, facebook, twitter, podcasts, and the like]. “Internet addiction” afflicts adults and teenagers alike. … Keep it all in perspective. Not all, but most of this “stuff” just becomes noise in the massive global echo chamber. And when there is so much noise out there, it eventually turns into white noise. And white noise, as anyone who goes to sleep with the air conditioner on knows, is a kind of silence. - The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century 

Thomas L. Friedman presents an interesting study in his book titled: The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century:

The Gartner study noted that “specialists generally have deep skills and narrow scope, giving them expertise that is recognized by peers but seldom valued outside their immediate domain. Generalists have broad scope and shallow skills, enabling them to respond or act reasonably quick but often without gaining on demonstrating the confidence of their partners or customers. Versatilists, in contrast, apply depth of skill to a progressively widening scope of situations and experiences, gaining new competencies, building relationships, and assuming new roles.” Versatilists are capable of not only of constantly adapting but also of constantly learning and growing.

Friedman goes on to suggest that in order for knowledge workers to remain globally competitive we need to be versatile. “[We] can’t just be head down, eye on the glass”, instead we need to be cultivating our core knowledge which can provide the versatility to transition through industries or technology, and we “have got to be able to see things from the business’, the customers’, and the market’s perspective.’ He also makes the point that most corporate training policies are outdated in our post globalized world, and that we should be taking educational and training into our own hands.

technical aptitude will no longer be sufficient to secure their future in IT organizations. Skepticism toward the effectiveness of IT, the rise of IT automation, worldwide geographic labour shifts and multi-sourcing will lead to the emergence of a new breed of IT professional, the ‘versatilist’, who will have technical aptitude, local knowledge, knowledge of industry processes and leadership ability. - Gartner Says Technical Aptitude No Longer Enough To Secure Future for IT Professionals 

For me, being a versatilist means embracing, higher level software design strategies, design / architecture patterns, management techniques, and honing communication / presentation skills.

I found Art Kleiner’s concept of vernacular culture interesting in his book The Age of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management.

Vernacular as described by Kleiner:

Despite the power of corporate practice, something desperately desirable has been lost in everyday corporate life, and without it, corporations could not truly perform. This lost quality, unnoticed and yet desperately needed, was the vernacular spirit of everyday life …

there is no better word than vernacular for the quality of relationships and culture that dominated community life before the advent of the industrial age … 

Vernacular life was the way of life that still exists in these villages of our dreams … In a vernacular culture the best things in life are free, economic and personal life are mixed together … and every exchange of goods is not just an economic transaction but an expression of the community’s spirit …

the builders of industrial culture didn’t have to reject vernacular culture; they merely ignored it or destroyed it in passing, while the power of finance and operations, the power of the numbers culture, undermined the relationships that vernacular culture depended on.

There’s strong parallels to the vernacular culture, the Agile / Lean movement, open source, buying locally, the Toyota Way and an innate human need for community and contribution. Today, many of the institutes that have been built on industrial culture (GM, Ford) seem to be faltering, whereas those that have been built on vernacular culture (Toyota, Google) seem to be succeeding.

Through the book the author suggests that heretics are often responsible for transforming industrial cultured institutes to ones that embrace vernacular culture.

Kleiner describes a heretic as:

someone who sees a truth that contradicts the conventional wisdom of the institution to which he or she belongs and remains loyal to both entities - the institution and the new truth.

One of the concepts that is continual presented within this text is that conventional wisdom and institutions are often incorrect, as individuals we can change our situation, our work environment, and our world, but in order to make change we need to identify, verbalize, and seek out new ideas and approaches.

I don’t know how I was recommended this book, but I’m really enjoying it!

Tree planting is a common job for university / college students in Canada. For those unfamiliar with tree planting, the connotation often conjures images of hippies and tree huggers, but in reality it’s grueling work most often embraced by entrepreneurial minded individuals - most tree planters are trying to pay their way through school or save up some fast cash for traveling. Over the years I have found some strong parallels between my experience tree planting and the software realm.

An Quick Introduction to Tree Planting

The tree planting season begins when the Canadian ground is soft enough to stick a shovel into it (in BC this could be as early as May) and ends in late July or August. As a planter you spend your summer living in bush camps (out of tents) close to remote cut blocks (your workplace) - my furthest camp was 5 hours from the nearest town via logging roads. Bush camps rarely have amenities, you dig your own bathrooms, and shower from the closest puddle. err… water source. As a tree planter your daily job involves getting up hours before sunrise, making lunch, going to a cut block, then spending most of the daylight hours running around desert like wastelands (clear cuts) as you try to plant 3,000 or more trees. 

As a tree planter you’re replacing the trees that lumber mill have cut down, the trees you’re planting are a crop that will be harvested in the next 60 years. You’re paid either by piecework, or on a per tree basis. One tree was worth about $0.12, but the tree / fixed piece price depended on the complexity of the land - for example when teetering on the side of a mountain you could expect $0.30+ per tree (along with the great view). As a student the pay was great, if you planted 3,000+ a day you were making $360 plus a remote allowance based. On top of this you were living in the bush making it difficult (never impossible) to spend your money.

How Tree Planting Relates to Software

Quality, Quantity, and Economics: Tree planters have to meet quality standards - periodically through the day a tree checker validates your work and provides quality feedback. As a planter you need to meet prescribed density requirements (you might need to have at least 8 trees in a 6 meter diameter), you need to meet specie requirements (you might need to have one fir tree for every 20 spruce trees), and you also need to meet planting requirements (the tree needs to be green side up, standing straight, the roots in soil, and the roots can’t be ‘J’ rooted). Usually there is a 10% leeway for poor quality (for every 10 trees you plant a single bad tree), this leeway is granted since it impossible to find a suitable planting site for every tree. As a planter you’re consistently working to keep quality in balance with quantity (since your income depends on your production) - an overly dogmatic approach to quality could mean you didn’t make much money while losing your mind as you searched for a suitable planting site on a rock face. On the other side if you placed too much emphasis on quantity (production) you risked forfeiting a day of work as you painfully pulled and replant (reworked) all of your trees. Occasionally there were severe imbalances between a contract’s quantity and quantity expectations, in these situations we could often negotiate a higher rate, and it wasn’t unheard of to have an entire crew go on strike. Similarly, in software we’re constantly balancing quality, quantity, and the economics of the project.

A Process Unsuitable for Automation: On the surface tree planting (like software development) appears to be automatable. A tree planters job boils down to some core tasks (make hole with shovel, bend over, plant tree, close hole, rinse and repeat 3,000 times a day!). Attempts have been made to automate the process, but the wide variation of terrain coupled with the constantly changing tree specifications are no match for an automated machine - the wide variation in terrain could require riding in a helicopter to a mountain top, riding in a rolligon the next week, or hiking for kilometers through the bush loaded down with trees for days. In the software realm automation is perceived as highly desirable (and some think it’s inevitable), but software, like tree planting is too complex for wide scale automation. Human agility, resourcefulness, and adaptability continues to succeed widespread automation.

The Quest for Continual Improvement: In order to improve as a tree planter you need to be self aware and reflective as you hone your skills daily. Ideally you’re searching for techniques that conserve energy and increase productivity while allowing you to stay in your flow. On my first day I made $-15 dollars in a 10 hour day. In the software development realm there is a constant quest for self improvement and enhancing your productivity.

Motivation: Your income depends directly on your motivation. Similarly in the software realm, if you’re not motivated to maintain and augment your skills, then you soon discover your rate and opportunities directly reflect your motivation level.

Team Work: You spend four months in bush camps with the same group of about 35 people, the camps are further subdivided into crews - with each crew containing 10-15 people. You work with the same people in your crew day-after-day and get to know them in EVERY way - you probably interrupted them taking a sh*t in the middle of a clear-cut, or took shelter in a crummy as a hail storm moved through. When working in a small finite team you quickly learn that it’s not possible to choose your members and that making (and maintaining) healthy relationships with your team members makes everyone’s life easier - and might even keep your sanity. Often times (like when bears are in the area) you work in groups or teams, side by side on a single piece of land. While pair planting you get to know the style of your partner, you can predict where they probably forgot to plant a tree and how they keep track of their line of planted trees. During the day you informally compete with your partner, and cajole each other for fun. Pair planting (cluster planting) relates nicely to paired programming and the importance of team work in the software realm.

Organizational Composition: As a tree planter you are a self employed contractor, you’re responsible for your own equipment, and lining up jobs with multiple companies to bring you through the summer. The composition of each tree planting company varies. Some companies will hire anyone and heavily recruit (these companies typically underbid on land, offer lower prices, and have a high turnover rate), whereas other great companies hire planters based on referrals and experience (these companies are known to have dependable annual contracts and a better environment). The best companies give their crews autonomy, respect, and adequate resources to get the job done. Again this transfers into the software realm.

Communication and Responsibility: Living in remote camps on dangerous logging roads requires additional safety. Communicating with your team is often necessary for survival. Not only are you responsible for yourself, but those around you. Tree planters have been known to be forgotten over night on remote cut blocks hours away from camp because no one knew where they were, or if they even came to work that day. Similarly, software teams should be taking collective ownership of a project, you are responsible for your code as well as the code base as a whole. Communication is essential.

What odd jobs have you taken to get you through college / university? How do you find they relate to the software realm? Have you ever planted trees?

Listening to Yegge, Spolsky, and Atwood really brought up this uncomfortable memory of projects past.

[Yegge] some people … they can’t handle [a failed project]. They’re out on the ledge, you have to talk them down real slow, it’s usually more junior people. 

[Spolsky] I don’t know about junior, but … that they identified with the project, and that is kind of important. … People are going to be … devoted to a project that they identify with.

[Yegge] … identifying with anything so strongly that it starts to give you emotional reaction is really bad. You never know when your language is going to be obsolete or your project is going to get canceled or your favorite framework is going to be replaced. - Steve Yegge, Joel Spolsky, stackoverflow podcast #25

I can certainly relate.

My experience was a lesson learned, which resulted in a couple personal changes:

• No overtime at the expense of personal life or prior commitments.
• A quest for a more outward facing perspective on projects and the industry in general.
• A need for remaining emotionally detached from the project - as well as the frameworks, technologies, and the languages that I use.
• An aversion towards organizations that encourage the type of situation I had gotten into.
• Skepticism towards company loyalty, brand loyalty, etc…

Teams work best in a trusting environment, and things begin to fall apart when backstabbing occurs - which from my experience results in alliances being formed between members, while a sense of self preservation and distrust creeps around the otherwise neutral team members. Soon the team digresses into a group of individuals operating in silos. I don’t think it’s possible to put a finger on the catalyst for the entire process, but it could boil down to a combination of: an overly cynical team member, a preexisting alliance between team members, lack of leadership on the project, a team member with an unexplainable appetite for control, a dysfunctional working environment, or human nature?…

No individual is a success who hurts the team, and no individual is a failure who helps it. - Software Project Survival Guide 

How can we cope? Bottom line: RESPECT. Treat your team as family, recognize that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Don’t participate in backstabbing, be transparent and honest, if you have an issue with a team member then make it a point to discuss your concerns with that member. Anyone participating in backstabbing is hurting the team.

Nobody on the team should feel unappreciated or ignored. This ensures high level of motivation and encourages loyalty toward the team, and the goal of the project.  - Respect, Extreme Programming Values

A project’s success hinges tightly on the team. Being a team player and having great interpersonal skills can be more important than technical skills - most people can rapidly learn new technical skills, but being able to function within a team might be an ingrained personality characteristic.

Living inside a machine ultimately leads to deep inbred malaise and resentment, the atrophy of creativity and productivity, and the propensity to sabotage. - The Age of Heretics, Art Kliener

At some point, I think we all experience life in the machine.

As developers, limiting ourselves to a single metaphor, framework, or programming language is a liability to our career. In order to remain employable and engaged with our work, we need to understand the higher level concepts surrounding our chosen development arena - if you’re working in the webspace this means knowing CSS, JavaScript, HTML, and more than one server-side language. Then beyond technologies and languages we should be looking at transcending principals like design patterns, and good design practices.

identifying with anything so strongly that it starts to give you emotional reaction is really bad. You never know when your language is going to be obsolete or … your favorite framework is going to be replaced. … I would love to see everybody learn a bunch of languages because it does make you a better programmer. … Most people will never switch languages. - Steve Yegge, stackoverflow podcast #25 

the obvious … is never seen until someone expresses it simply. - Kahlil Gibran

The preface of Object Oriented Software Construction literally introduced me to the three-step sequence:

the well-known three-step sequence of reactions that meets the introduction of a new methodological principle:

(1) “it’s trivial”;
(2) “it cannot work”;
(3) “that’s how I did it all along anyway”.

(The order may vary.) - Bertrand Meyer

Naturally people consider themselves smart, which sometimes translates into knowing everything, and these three reactions are probably a manifestation of thinking you’re overly enlightened. If we put ego aside - along with our natural predisposition for being lazy (trying to avoiding learning new things) - we often change our views altogether.

Looking back at my technological naivety: I was once wrongly convinced that client-side languages would never work and server-side languages / frameworks would dominate (until I really learned JavaScript), I had also mistakenly assumed that I was already doing TDD (until being introduced to the concept of Mocking), and I even thought that HTML table based design was the future (until I really learned CSS). With a little bit of knowledge and some experience I changed my views altogether.

Reflecting on these incorrect assumptions and decisions promotes growth - with every experience we grow. Which of my latest assumptions / reactions will change over time?