I got a tweet from Clive Seebregts which pointed me to an InfoQ article that made reference to an old Hanselminutes podcast that I did. It’s nice to see that diversity is not being left in the wilderness and that other people are thinking about it again. It seems like some people are trying to promote diversity and others are trying to manage the challenges of diversity. Hmmm, somewhere there is point of brutal contact, but it will be for the good.
BTW, digging around on material diversity in agile teams I came across this video. I didn’t know it existed at all. Suddenly, the references to the FIFA 2010 World Cup seem sooooo dated.
Jimmy Nilsson asked me in an email a few days ago “How’s life?”. I’m sure it was just a regular, friendly question, but I gave him a “life” answer. It was not spontaneous but something that has been brooding in me for a while. It is about things that I have been trying to do for a long time.
Here’s a few splintered thoughts from my email exchange.
Enlightened, for me, is about happiness that comes from being content; unenlightened is just trying to be happy.
There are many solutions for every problem, whether I am aware of them or not; and the problem has already chosen the best solution, but I have not found it yet.
Code from my heart because I should trust myself first.
Be part of the exploration, not just an observer.
This moment is more important than trying to figure out how it impacts the future, because I can deal with the future in that future moment.
Passion is constant whether I succeed or fail.
Let the project plan me, by bending to suit the situation not and not bending the situation to suit me.
The code I write knows everything, because every line of code has an impact on someone else or some other piece of code.
Now I’ve decided to actively explore why I write code, or why I wish to continue doing what I am doing. I am not sure what I will uncover in this exploration, but I know that it will be very personal. I don’t even know if it will be worth sharing, that’s why I am sharing so early. It just felt right.
I think it will be really tough, but I take solace from my 9 year old son who told his 6 year old sister “Getting hurt is part of playing”.
PS: I don’t think Jimmy will ever ask me a “How’s life?” question again
Oh yeah, I´ll tell you something
I think you'll understand
When I say that something
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
So what made me think about this? That frustrating construction of the new M5/N1 interchange in Cape Town!! When you’re sitting in traffic, you can’t do anything but look and think. And I’ve seen this scaffolding get taller and taller and wider and wider and longer and longer and more and more people appear on it each day.
Sourced from http://www.capetown.gov.za
I know that one day, they will remove the scaffolding and the concrete will just hang there in mid air on those massive pillars and walls that they’re busy building, and I won’t be sitting in traffic any longer, and it will all just work.
What a shame that software is not like that !! So many people get turned on by scaffolding. And The Beatles sang on …
And when I touch you i feel happy, inside
It's such a feeling
That my love
I can't hide
I can't hide
I can't hide
And just like the M5 construction, so much scaffolding gets built, and so many people climb on. But then, they don’t climb down. And they don’t tear down the scaffolding. And it just stays there mashed in with the concrete bits. And then they ask people to use it. And it takes strain and then it’s a performance problem, or a load problem, or it just crashes down.
I do use scaffolding, but most of the time it’s in a spike and more often it’s in a test, just to get me over my point of fear. Deploying software with scaffolding is just dangerous and negligent. I really don’t want to drive my car over the M5 interchange while those thin steel pipes are holding up the concrete slabs.
But above all of that, the most important scaffolding is social scaffolding. It’s better to provide human scaffolding to support each other on a team that is focused on delivering quality software. It’s worse to plug in weak struts in the code base that will just collapse when the next developer builds on top of it. Very un-ubuntu!
So, the Beatles song still holds true, but only for social scaffolding.
Yeah you, got that something
I think you'll understand
When I say that something
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your ha-a-a-a-a-a-and
If you hate reading lengthy blog posts and dig the mind map view of the world, then add Steve van der Merwe’s blog to your feed gadget. What I really like is his short quick observations and great views about software development. But for me, it’s even better that I get to speak to him regularly, in person. If you’re in the Cape Town area, make a point of finding him and chatting to him. He makes ubuntu real.
One of my contributions to 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know will be included in the book. My good friend and colleague, Niclas Nilsson, also has a contribution which will be in the book as well. But don’t just read mine, read all 97 and the amazing contributions that did not make it to the printed book as well. I have know idea how Kevlin Henney managed to select these 97 things from so many contributions.
