Why you should pay developers to learn
A true story We were having a meeting with a customer and he had just presented a project idea. He wanted us to give him a draft system architecture, supporting his project technical requirements. At one point, I was telling him that incremental development requires architecture evolution as well. When I said that finding the right architecture is also a learning process, he cut me off short of the following sentence: Do you expect me to pay you to learn? To save the day, I told him I was referring to the… Read More
What I learned at Topconf Bucharest
Introduction I’ve got back from Topconf Romania 2014, a developer to developer conference that emerged in Tallinn and for the first time this year it was also held in Bucharest. As an architect, I assumed I’d be after technical speeches but I got really impressed by some management related presentations as well. Lessons learned A conference is a great learning experience. New technologies are being advertised and software paradigms get dissected and questioned by both the speakers and the attendees. There were some great ideas I came back with and I’ll share… Read More
Effective learning techniques for software craftsmen
Go in one ear and out the other Programming languages, operating systems, SQL, NoSQL, web frameworks, Spring, Java EE, HTML, JavaScript, Agile methodologies, you name it. A developer must know a ridiculous amount of things to become effective. There’s no wonder many of us are struggling to keep pace with the ever-changing programming landscape. When you’re a kid, doing stuff is the most natural way of learning, but then you go to school and you’re brainwashed into thinking that reading is the only way of studying. Become an active learner Ever since… Read More
Afraid of reopened issues?
Introduction Reopened issues and developer feelings don’t mix well, a recurrent phenomenon I’ve seen on all projects I’ve worked on. Some might feel they’ve worked “in vain”, being reluctant to restart it all over again. Reopened issues are bound to happen There is a thin line between taking ownership of your current project and remaining professionally detached at all times. The only thing that matters is the value the customer gets for any given issue, even if it takes more steps than you previously anticipated. In software development, the change is the… Read More
Choosing a leader like an agilist
The leader as a captain I recently read Petri Kainulainen’s article on sharing leadership among team members and I am on the same wavelength in this regard, since the Agile methods emphasizes the importance of “motivated individuals, who should be trusted”. While a team leader could be regarded as a reminiscence of the old rigid organization structures, I still see many benefits of having such a captain. When it comes to improving my people skills, I like to get inspired by other domains of activity that have been struggling with the very… Read More
Code review best practices
Code review is a great software instrument and you should definitely use it to improve the quality of your code. But like any other tool, it may be misused sometimes. That’s why I came up with a list of best practices to guide you when reviewing your peers’ code. Code review is not testing: Code review is a developer-to-developer business and it doesn’t involve any testing. Code review should check if the task requirements are met in the cleanest possible way. You don’t tell what to code review: The same way you… Read More
Teaching is the best way to learn
Introduction Software development is all about knowledge, and nowadays the number of things a programmer needs to know skyrocketed. Most of the time developers are hired by matching their current skills with some project requirements. The project eventually ends, and the developer is assigned to a new project, sometimes using different technologies than what he was previously hired for. What’s the policy for training this guy to deliver his best the soonest possible? Usually, training and coaching are left-out, so each programmer is on his own. Every time we leave things to chance a huge… Read More
Why I never blame open source projects
Every now and then I get to read someone’s bad thought towards a given open-source framework. When I started programming Struts web framework was at its prime, everybody loved it. But then, little by little people started blaming it and then hate followed. Then people started blaming Hibernate and recently MongoDB. I’ve even read that “I shouldn’t use MongoDB“. Well, I delivered projects on Struts, Hibernate and MongoDB, and none of those was ever a blocker. If there is someone to blame it’s usually us, not the frameworks we use. If you… Read More
Book Review – How to win friends and influence people
Soft skills When working as a Scrum Master you have to constantly make sure the Scrum principles are followed, but there are also other aspects that requiring handling as well, and they are more subtle yet equally important for successfully managing developing teams. I am talking about soft skills such as managing team conflicts, encouraging people, knowing how to challenge your team members. There are times when some of your guys behave inappropriately versus others, or their attitude/behavior is counter-productive and you have to step in and correct these problems with diplomacy… Read More
