Recap of the Schneide Dev Brunch 2014-06-01

Yesterday, we held another Schneide Dev Brunch at last. The Dev Brunch is a regular brunch on a sunday, only that all attendees want to talk about software development and various other topics. If you bring a software-related topic along with your food, everyone has something to share. The brunch was very well-attended this time. We had bright sunny weather and used our roof garden to catch some sunrays. There were lots of topics and chatter. As always, this recapitulation tries to highlight the main topics of the brunch, but cannot reiterate everything that was spoken. If you were there, you probably find this list inconclusive:

Home office in another time zone

One of our attendees is preparing to leave Germany for at least one year to work in another timezone one the same projects. He gave a quick overview about the setup and some considerations. The team is used to distributed, multi-timezone work, but will now span the whole scala of it. We are eager to have a first-hand report about how it all plays out and sad that we will not see him for quite a time in person. (Personal note: I will miss the developer beer meetings we held infrequently)

XP 2014 conference in Rome

Another one of our attendees just came back from the XP 2014 conference in Rome, still hungover. She reported a lot of impressions and single bits of insights impromptu and will work up a more refined talk for the next brunch. One thing that seems like a really good idea is the “Stop Work Authority Card”. Basically, it’s a card you can hold up like a referee in a sports match to clearly state that the safety of some of your most valueable assets is compromised or risking to be. You have the obligation to play the card if you perceive such a threat and the (temporary) authority to remove it or have it removed.

The idea of “safety” (in non-hazardous or friendly) was a big theme at the conference. The claim that “safety is the prerequisite of excellence” stood out.

The XP 2014 conference was a small one, but visited by insiders from all over the world. It certainly sparked a lot of ideas and food for thought. We are looking forward for the report at the next Dev Brunch.

Is TDD dead?

A most recent discussion we at the Softwareschneiderei follow with great interest is the debate around David Heinemeier Hansson’s frontal attack on the hype around Test Driven Development. There are lots of blog posts to read, some better, some not so much. But an highlight is probably the video chat series between Kent Beck (inventor of TDD), Martin Fowler (general loudmouth, here in a rather quiet role as a moderator) and David Heinemeier Hansson (general firestarter). And while the topic is hot and the discussion fresh, we soon deviated from the main questions and explored the state of art how knowledge and experience is transported in our profession. We concluded that while we all dislike populism, it’s an effective tool to transport messages (with the downside of losing nuances on the way).

Continuous improvement

One attendee asked about good ways to improve his skill and craft. Besides the obvious answers (sleep less, train more, read a lot), there were quite a few ideas. One source of inspiration could be “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”, a documentary movie about a famous sushi master and his quest to perfect the art of sushi (yes, the little snacks that are delicious even without mastery). The concept of “better every day, but never good enough” was identified to be prone to perfectionism, a trait often found in masters of their field, but probably not the most economically sound one. The author of this blog post wrote about his approach to professional passion three years ago.

Radical table

We agreed to consider our little discussion group “the radical table” because we don’t shy away from argueing in the extremes to get our messages across. This all was mentioned in good spirits and without personal insults. But if you read about the “radical table manifesto” some point in the future, don’t be surprised. It might include a plea to Uncle Bob to never give up his style to deliver keynotes and talks even if we don’t attend it twice.

Start-up software tools

In the end of the brunch, we split into several smaller groups to discuss more specific topics of personal interest. I can’t report for the talks I didn’t attend, but joined a discussion about recommendable and necessary tools for a software development start-up company. Some tools that were given included OpenERP, JIRA (including the whole Atlassian portfolio), FogBugz, Microsoft Office 365 and CAS Genesis World.

One controversial topic was the importance of integration (as in “one tool for everything”) versus requirement matching (as in “does exactly what we want”). Related was the topic of “plan ahead” versus “change tools mid-flight”. If you have experience with these questions, please leave a comment.

Epilogue

As usual, the Dev Brunch contained a lot more chatter and talk than listed here. The high number of attendees makes for an unique experience every time. We are looking forward to the next Dev Brunch at the Softwareschneiderei. And as always, we are open for guests and future regulars. Just drop us a notice and we’ll invite you over next time.