Enjoy the following series of interviews with the speakers, top-notch software crafters from across Europe, joining I T.A.K.E Unconference, Bucharest, 11-12 May. Discover the lessons learned and what drives them to challenge the known path in their field.
Alin Pandichi, Software Developer at MozaicLabs and facilitator of the monthly Coding Dojo meeting that is part of the largerBucharest Agile Sofware Meetup Group, will share during his talk at I T.A.K.E Unconference more about Covariance and contravariance.
#1. Please share with us 5 things you did that helped you grow & become the professional you are today
I’ll answer this with a little bit of story telling about how I became a software developer. The first two things that helped me were attending the computer science oriented high school and college. There, I learned the basics of computers and programming languages. I also noticed how effortlessly I was solving CS related problems, so maybe I was onto something.
Number three: I got my first job straight out of college, developing a Swing rich client application saving data with JPA. This put me face to face with real world problems. I was faced with the fact that continuous learning is a must in this industry.
Therefore, number four on the list is learning. For the first few couple of years, I kept devouring every Java-related article I could find on DZone. With each one, I found out something new: a useful tool, a Linux terminal command, a development methodology, etc.
Last, but not least, is getting involved with local software development communities. I started attending meetups such as The Bucharest Agile Software Meetup Group and the Bucharest Java User Group. Gradually, I became an active member of both, giving a helping hand in organizing their events. On top of that, I also got involved in the wider community of Global Day of Coderetreat. My talk at I TAKE 2017 is one of the occasional opportunities I get to share what I know.
#2. What challenges will the participants find solutions to during your session at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017?
They will find it easier to understand the concepts of covariance and contravariance, and how they are applied in the world of programming. In my experience, it was very easy to forget what these two words meant. Not anymore.
#3. Recommend for the participants 3 sources you find inspiration from and would help them better understand you
I dream big, so my biggest source of inspiration is science fiction. My first serious SF encounter was with Frank Herbert’s Dune series. Out of the contemporary authors, I enjoy Neil Gaiman’s work very much.
Whenever I get a chance, I tune into Nick Francis’ podcast called Quiet Music. It is a blend of low beat music of various genres: electronic, jazz, instrumental, folk, light rock, and so on.
Cinema is one of my other hobbies. I am very much interested in following every film festival happening in Bucharest. Also, the Romanian cinema of the past two decades has offered many gems so far, and it continues to do so.
Want to join Alin and ~300 software crafters from around Europe?
Register now for I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017!
Mocks are mocking at you?
Enjoy the following series of interviews with the speakers, top-notch software crafters from across Europe, joining I T.A.K.E Unconference, Bucharest, 19-20 May. Discover the lessons learned and what drives them to challenge the known path in their field.
Andreas Leidig, Developer & Agile Mentor MsgGillardon AG, and Robin Danziger, Software Developer, will join I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016 as speakers. They will share in their talk more about mocks and prototypical library for solving this problem in JavaScript: chadojs.
#1. SHARE TOP 5 THINGS YOU DID THAT HELPED YOU GROW & BECOME THE PROFESSIONAL YOU ARE TODAY
Robin:
- Regular participant and speaker at conferences & local user groups
- Coaching teams and organizing internal meetups about software development
- Working with different teams and companies (I’m a freelancer)
- Ask professionals how they would solve a problem
- Try to read the whole internet 😉
Andreas:
- Initiating a conference (SoCraTes)
- Visiting and speaking at conferences
- Listening and questioning my own views
- Working with different teams (during my previous job)
- Thinking outside the box
#2. What challenges will the participants find solutions to during your session at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016?
Participants will learn about the possible pitfalls and gaps when using mock objects blindly. They will understand that this may lead to decreased safety for refactoring and this weakend trust initiates the need for creating more and more integration tests.
They will see the underlying principles and learn about ways and techniques to escape this trap.
3. What else would you like to share with participants
Robin:
I like to talk about different software development approaches. How can we use and maintain software tests from specifications and end-to-end-tests to unit-tests. And I would like to know how other teams share their knowledge and improve the collaboration inside the team.
Andreas:
Don’t be shy. Open your ears and eyes. Listen and ask.
Want to join Andreas & Robin and many more software crafters from around Europe?
Node.JS OSS
#1. Share with us 5 things you did that helped you grow & become the professional you are today
- I got the chance to work with technology from a very early age (think ZX Spectrum, Intel 8088) and also with assembly language. This taught me to appreciate constraints and never ignore optimization or be lazy.
- Discovering OSS via the Allegro game library lead me to a wealth of code to analyze and learn from.
- Getting a job in the IT department at the university while being a student there leading to four years of experimenting with whatever I wanted to.
- Teaching at the same university.
- Getting involved in the Drupal community, taking part in the creation of Romanian branch, organizing various camps and teaching Drupal.
#2. What challenges will the participants find solutions to during your session at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016?
#3. What else would you like to share with participants
- I am a very bad theremin player. The theremin was the first electronic instrument ever invented and you play it by not touching it. Check it out, it’s pretty cool.
- I am passionate about synthesizers, old hardware and horror movies.
- I am an amateur musician using Gameboys, Commodore 64 sound chips and other retro things. I once played music in the Gara de Nord railway, at the info panel.
- I like to ride statues (usually of pigs) while pretending to be Bastian from the Neverending Story.
Want to join Alexandru and many more software crafters from around Europe?
Mutation testing
Enjoy the following series of interviews with the speakers, top-notch software crafters from across Europe, joining I T.A.K.E Unconference, Bucharest, 19-20 May. Discover the lessons learned and what drives them to challenge the known path in their field.
Nicolas Fränkel, Software Architect with 15 years of experience in a wide range of contexts, University teacher, experienced trainer and book author will join as speaker I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016. In his talk, he will explain how Code Coverage is computed and what its inherent flaw is. Afterwards, he will describe how Mutation Testing works and how it helps pointing out code that is tested but leave out corner cases.
#1. SHARE TOP 3 THINGS YOU DID THAT HELPED YOU GROW & BECOME THE PROFESSIONAL YOU ARE TODAY
- I chose to become a programmer, because during my architectural studies, there was a course on POV-Ray, a ray-tracing software where scenes are described with a language
- I now avoid not well-understood bash commands after trying to execute a find with exec rm command on a production server and starting deleting the server’s filesystem
- I value knowledge sharing since I started teaching a very long time ago
#2. WHAT CHALLENGES WILL THE PARTICIPANTS FIND SOLUTIONS TO DURING YOUR SESSIONS @ I T.A.K.E UNCONFERENCE 2016?
#3. WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE WITH PARTICIPANTS?
Want to join Nicolas and many more software crafters from around Europe?