That Other Guy . . .

Pablo's Fiesta Preparation

2010-02-18T17:50:00Z

I just posted our invitation to the upcoming Fiesta. If you're planning to attend I hope you'll take a few minutes to prepare yourself so we all get the most out of the experience.

If you have registered and you don't plan on attending please let John know so we can make your ticket available to someone else - last time I checked we were almost sold-out.

For myself, I'm ready for the following:

I know why software quality and craftsmanship matters to me. I love programming so I want to do it well. I know how I define quality today but that definition is constantly refined and it gets better when I hear how other people define it. I have a family that needs me to make money and I want to continue doing that while doing something I love - creating software that works for users as well as possible.
I'm ready to take action. I've spent the last several months working on my own personal improvement and it's time for me to do more in my community.
I'm ready to hear (e.g. actually listen instead of mentally creating a rebuttal) opinions counter to my own. I'm ready to have my opinions challenged and to explain them without taking offense.

I hope you're joining us. I know many of the people who will be there and I believe this will be a great weekend for all of us.

Los Techies Fiesta Invitation

2010-02-18T17:37:00Z

Pablo's Fiesta Invitation

How do you define, improve, and celebrate Software Quality and Craftsmanship in yourself, your organization, and your community? Los Techies is searching for answers to these questions and we've invited you to join us to explore together.

We're excited about this conference and the conversations we hope will take place . For those conversations to live up to our expectations and yours you must come prepared to:

Engage in open conversations. If you have an idea, know the reasons for that idea and be prepared to discuss them without taking offense. If you disagree with an idea, be prepared to criticize the idea, not the person.

Know why Software Quality and Craftsmanship matters to you. We know why it matters to us - we're inviting you to hear why it matters to you. If you don't know why, take some time to explore the answers before you attend.

Provide actionable ideas and take action after the conference is over. If all we do is discuss a few ideas, solidify viewpoints, and bolster our egos this conference won't have done much. We want to leave the Fiesta energized to make our profession better fit our dreams.

If you you walk out of the Fiesta muttering to yourself we never talked about the really important issues you cared about, please notice the person responsible for that is you.

It's time to get to work. What are the issues and opportunities for Software Quality and Craftsmanship you care about? What are your ideas, questions, and desires for resolution and future directions in Software Quality and Craftsmanship? How do we make those ideas happen now - all the way to the level of implementation?

Sponors

St.Edward's Professional Education Center
Microsoft
McLane Advanced Technologies will be providing drinks and snacks for everyone
Pragmatic Bookshelf will be providing some books
The Lounge provided advertising
Infragistics
Avenida Software (John Teague)
Independent Software Fabrication (Me)
Venti Consulting
CodeBetter.com

Event: Los Techies Fiesta

Date: Friday, February 26, 2010 at 6:00 PM - Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 12:00 PM (CT)

Location:
St Edwards Professional Education Center
9420 Research Blvd
Echelon III
Austin, TX 78759

For more information click here: Los Techies Fiesta

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning - A Review

2009-12-10T14:19:00Z

So, back in August (or was it September?) the members of Los Techies were offered a sweet deal from The Pragmatic Programmers - pick any book (free), read it, and write a review. There were no strings attached so we could give our honest opinion. I picked Pragmatic Thinking and Learning (Andy Hunt) and eagerly awaited my package. For this to be a thorough review I should admit that I have already read and own several of The Pragmatic Programmers books. I've long considered The Pragmatic Programmer to be one of the few "must read" books for any programmer. So, it is fair to say I'm pre-disposed to the style and opinions of The Pragmatic Programmers team.

To start, my 'package' first arrived as an email, letting me know my book was ready for download (DRM free) in three diffferent formats (PDF, EPUB, MOBI). Tickled by this unexpected event, I downloaded my three formats and loaded it up on my iPhone. Do yourself a favor - don't try to read a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g of substance on the iphone. This false start was short lived because I soon received a dead-tree (paper) copy in my mailbox. Yea for murdered trees! Two weeks later I had finished the book (about the end of September). Now I faced a dilema - and my first warning about this book - even though I had read every word of the book (many several times) I couldn't really write a serious review. This is because this book cannot be simply read - it must be exercised, practiced, and tested to give you the full experience. There are many exercises throughout the book, some that require you to spend 20 minutes or more several times over several days to truly be prepared to evaluate the premise.

Undaunted, I began to re-read the book at a more sedate pace, performing each exercise until I was satisfied I could judge it fairly. This put me squarely up against my life-long nemisis - procrastination. There were a few weeks (here and there) when I simply didn't give the book enough time and my progress stalled. If you have a difficult time staying on-task over several weeks you're going to get less than you could out of this book. I've finally finished the book - again. I can say without any hesitation it has joined my short-list of 'must read' programmer books. If you are a programmer and you haven't read this book stop. Now. Yes, now. Go get the book here and start reading. What are you doing? Why are you still reading this? I said now! What? You want to know why? Where is the trust in this world anymore?

O.k. why do I like this book so much? I suppose I could've told you that before I told you to buy it but . . . now you'll know why you bought it. You did buy it - didn't you? I can see we're going to have a problem. O.k., fine - what did I like about the book:

Much like The Pragmatic Programmer, this book doesn't give you "The Answer" or profess that everything in it works the same for everyone. Andy makes a point to stress "Consider the Context" and this is a big part of the power of this book. Of course, if (when) you read this book you'll discover I probably like this aspect at least in part due to my generational bias. Wanna know what that means? To bad, you'll have to find out for yourself.
I firmly believe your brain is the most important tool you will ever have. I've spent my entire life trying to improve that particular piece of equipment and I intend to continue the process until my brainwaves cease. Andy has spent a huge amount of time reading different books on how the brain works and condenses his learning into a compact format for us. So, there's a lot of bang for your reading buck.
This book has huge re-readability. It has been become a reference for me that I return to often - not necessarily just for the material Andy has supplied directly, but also as a reference for other books I'd like to go read.
I finished this book inspired, empowered, and encouraged that I could do more in less time than I imagined - in short, my learning pace has accelerated noticeably.

What wasn't so cool? Well, I've ended up with a much longer list of books I'd like to read. While Andy does an admirable job of bringing a great deal of material to bear in a concise format he does so at the expense of being somewhat terse. If you, like me, have a curiosity that is not satisfied by a synopsis of a larger body of work then the bibliography of this book will supply you - as it has me - with a surplus of reading material and a paucity of spare time.

O.k. Ready to go buy it now? I mean, I'd loan you my copy but I'm using it. Enjoy. I certainly have.

If You're Looking for Nothin But .Net . . .

2009-06-19T02:22:04Z

I attended JP's Nothin But .Net course (http://www.jpboodhoo.com/training.oo) last week and I wanted to share my perspective with anyone who might be considering the course. I really enjoyed the experience and I'd happily recommend the course . . . to the right people. Rather than do the usual "I recommend this course because blah, blah, blah" I'd like to tell you why you shouldn't or wouldn't want to attend. If you make to the end of this post and still want to attend, I highly recommend you do as soon as possible.

If you already have an incredibly strong understanding of the .Net Framework, TDD, BDD, DDD, or if you have a style/way of programming that is perfectly effective and satisfying for you then don't attend. If fact, if you're any good at teaching, you might wish to start your own course.

If you are very comfortable with your life and your method of programming and you don't wish to be challenged then this would be a bad course for you. JP will challenge you to improve your coding skills and your life. Not your idea of a good time? Stay home.

If you are very weak in .Net, especially if you are new to it, wait. Learn more about the framework, delegates, generics, and unit testing before you consider this course.

If the idea of spending 80+ hours in five days focused on .Net development skills fills you with dread, don't go. Monday night - 10:30pm, Tuesday - 11:30pm, Wednesday - 12:30pm, Thursday night (well really Friday morning) 4:30am, Friday night - 2:30am All this and a 7:00am return flight on Saturday morning will get you a splitting headache.

If the course still sounds interesting I have some news for you - it rocks . . . but I was fortunate. How? Glad you asked. (you did ask didn't you?) JP brings an incredible amount of passion for what he does and when I say passion I mean Love. JP obviously loves coding. He loves teaching. He loves his wife and children. I'd say he clearly loves his life. His love for what he's doing creates a safe environment for the students push themselves to the limit, to be challenged by the task and each other. JP calls it 'attacking the code without mercy' and it's only possible if everyone in the room buys into that atmosphere of trust. It's like in Peter Pan - JP's attitude is the pixie dust - all you have to do is have your happy thoughts and we all can fly. The group of guys in the Denver class did just that. We all gave into the spirit JP tried to create and it made everything just work. If even one of the students had decided to attack the others it wouldn't have been so special. I'm grateful to my fellow classmates for what they brought to our class - it was an awesome experience. I can't guarantee your classmates will be as cool as those in my class.

Now we get to the worst part of all - after a long week of being taught, encouraged, and cajoled to be the best programmer and person you can be - it all ends. You have to go back to the real world and the real life you left. The 'lost boys' have to leave Neverland and grow up. After 80+ hours you may have goals loftier than when you began and a list of things to learn next that would make most college students scream. Unlike most classes, JP's course isn't a destination. It isn't the culmination of journey or a goal - it is the beginning of one. And it is the days, weeks, months, and years that follow that will determine how valuable that beginning was - if Nothin But .Net was the beginning of your own 'I love my life' story. This is my challenge now - to walk that path towards that programmer, that person I want to be and find my own way. Thank you JP.

As with all opinions and recommendations this one is based on my experience and things could change. If you take JP's course and don't find the same love for coding and teaching coming from JP that I saw please let me know. Somehow, I doubt that will happen.

Pablo’s Topic of the Month – May 2009 Edition

2009-05-01T12:16:00Z

Have you ever read a blog post about TDD, Dependency Injection, or some other concept and thought, “Sounds great . . . if you work in an ivory tower, but I have to work with [insert your code-base here].”? Or maybe you really like the idea but you have no clue how to start without beginning the project over? If you answered yes then Pablo is going to make you smile because this month’s topic is Refactoring ‘Brownfield’ Projects. Wikipedia has a fairly complete definition of Brownfield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownfield_(software_development)) but for our purposes you can consider any project that must use or take into consideration ‘legacy’ code a Brownfield project. What is ‘legacy’ code? Again, for Pablo this means any code that isn’t under test – including that lovely bit of code I just wrote . . . hmmm, I can’t wait to see what Pablo has this month.

If you haven't already, please consider subscribing to the Los Techies Main Feed so that you can see the various post from all the Los Techies bloggers.

The main feed is here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/lostechies

As the month progresses you can expect posts on:

PTOM - Brownfield Development - Making your dependencies explicit (Introducing DI and “poor man’s DI” )
PTOM - Breaking Free of HttpContext
Refactoring to TDD (putting a legacy system under test)
Bringing an Inversion of Control container into the game
Black-box analysis for replacing existing legacy apps
Throwing out a Safety Net – using smoke tests to gain confidence your changes won’t break critical transactions

We'll update this post with the links for these topics as they are posted so stay tuned and Enjoy!

Know Your Enemy

2009-04-14T16:07:48Z

Is it too late to make resolutions? Oh well, I’ll make one anyway.

I was listening to Eric’s talk on getting a legacy system under control (e.g. under test) and he mentioned a saying I’ve heard so many times before but this time it hit me differently: “Don’t allow Best to be the enemy of Better.” I’ve had this beat into my head so much I usually don’t even consider the consequences of this statement as I code – it’s now a habit of thought.

But as I sat there last night I realized a lot of us in the programming community, myself included, often fail to apply this concept to ourselves (our career/skills/idea of ourselves). I believe this is part of the chasm Scott Bellware mentioned in a post about the gap between early adopters and mainstream developers. As early adopters build the excitement around the concepts and ideas they’ve discovered the rest of us may build an artificial ‘best’ out of their ‘better’. JP had a nice post on this idea and I’ll borrow a piece:

Lots of developers are unhappy because they feel they are losing a comparison game that they are unfortunately playing. They are swamped with all of the information coming at them by people on "blogs, twitter, facebook, screencasts, podcasts". They no sooner learn a new topic and then realize that one of the people they are following has already moved onto 15 new topics that they are now mastering. This can quickly become a very self defeating thing. Instead of savoring the journey, which is learning for them self, progressing at a pace that is comfortable to them, and one upping their personal abilities day after day; they become demoralized at the inability to "keep up".

By making someone else's ‘better’ the basis for our ‘best’ we create a goal that may be both impossible to achieve and demoralizing. I can’t tell you if you’re allowing your idea of Best to be the enemy of your ability to be better but I can say you’re not alone. I can understand what many of the early adopters are saying but it takes me quite a bit longer to gain the ability to apply it. Gabriel had a nice post on the process we all go through as we transition from our first exposure (level 1) to true understanding (level 6). I can get to Level 2 on his scale fairly quickly with most things but getting from there to Level 5 or 6 takes me a lot longer than most of my Los Techies colleagues. It took me many months to reach Level 5 with Lamda Expressions (ouch huh?). That’s totally fine because no matter the time it took I achieved my ‘Better’ and it was a fun journey because I didn’t stress about it.

So that’s my resolution – not to let anyone else’s ‘Better’ or ‘Best’ become the enemy of my Better. My Better is mine and I’m going to enjoy achieving it. Do you know your enemy?

Hola Los Techies and Thanks!

2008-09-21T20:25:37Z

I was thrilled to be invited to join the Los Techies community. I've been a fan-boy for some time and this is going to be fun. No code in this post, so I'll be brief. I'll mostly be focusing on how to apply some of the ideas the rest of the Los Techies gang blogs about in a less-than-ideal environment. So, if you have to deal with legacy applications, the buy + build mentality, or tight budgets stay tuned and we'll look at some ideas together.

Thanks again for inviting me!