Last sunday, we held another Schneide Dev Brunch, a regular brunch on the second sunday of every other (even) month, only that all attendees want to talk about software development and various other topics. This brunch was smaller, which enabled us to use the meeting table with some comfort. Sometimes, with many attendees and bad weather, this table can get a little bit crowded. As usual, the main theme was that if you bring a software-related topic along with your food, everyone has something to share. Because we were a small group, we discussed without an agenda. As usual, a lot of topics and chatter were exchanged. 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:
Area of training
We shared some stories about top-notch video game players and how they keep up with the demand to stay competitive. Similar stories can be told about every topic imagineable: What did the “king of the hill” do to rise to such levels? The answer is always: training. Excessive, brutal training. They are first in the gym and lock the door late at night because they are the last, too. The use every waking second for practice and repetition. They are obsessed with being “the best”. If you want to follow such a story in movie format, you might enjoy “Whiplash”, a movie about an aspiring expert drummer that also highlights the delicate trainer/trainee dynamics. If you are more interested in the strategies of obtaining mastery, the book “Mastery” by Robert Greene will give you a lot of insights.
With this background, we asked around what our area of training (not expertise, not mastery – just training) is. The answers varied wildly, from the obvious “programming” to “whisky” (as in whisky tasting and collecting whisky). It’s an interesting question: what goal are you actively pursuing at the moment?
Hacking challenges
Evolving from the first topic, we talked about coding challenges and “capture the flag” hacking contests. If you aren’t the grandmaster in the area of the contest, you’ll get the most out of it by following the participating teams and trying to understand their approaches. The local security capture the flag team of the KIT is especially open with their approach, their failures and successes. You might want to check out their website.
One challenge included trying to break a whitebox encryption, which is an interesting topic in itself. Maybe somebody can read up on this topic and give a little presentation in the future. Another challenge seemed to lead to an elaborate buffer overflow attack, when in reality, it could be solved with a “simple” use-after-free attack.
An useful starting point for aspiring security hackers might be the CTF (capture the flag) field guide. There are also some online challenges for basic training purposes, like the cryptopals or the bandit wargame. Thanks Tobias for the links!
If you are more interested in playful challenges and don’t want to show up on somebody’s radar, programming/hacking games like TIS-100 are perfect for you. Our game night with TIS-100 is still in vivid memory.
Software Architecture training
There are a lot of programming contests and hacking challenges out there. But what about dry-run training for software architects? On a related scale, there are hundreds of training simulators for the foot soldier (called ego-shooters), but little games for the aspiring officer/general. The website armchair general lists a few and even has some contests, but they lack the depth of real experience. Similarly, the training for software architects will probably be clean-room exercises, when in reality, the customer needs, the team mood, the latest fad in technology and even the weather will influence the architecture just as well as textbook knowledge.
We couldn’t discuss this topic to its full potential, so it will re-appear on the agenda of the next Dev Brunch. And its open for discussion in the comments: What are good books and trainings for software architects?
Thomas pointed us to the Architectural Katas by Ted Neward. Perhaps we should schedule a Schneide Event to try them out?
Epilogue
As usual, the Dev Brunch contained a lot more chatter and talk than listed here. The number of attendees makes for an unique experience every time. We are looking forward to the next Dev Brunch at the Softwareschneiderei in December. We even have some topics still on the agenda (like a report about first-hand experiences with the programming language Rust). And as always, we are open for guests and future regulars. Just drop us a notice and we’ll invite you over next time.
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