Putting the Science in Computer Science with Felienne Hermans

Nov 26, 2014 by Madalina Botez in  Announcements

Most conversations about best practices in software development focus on personal preferences: Vim versus emacs, static versus dynamic typing, Java versus C#. Other domains use research to settle such questions. Couldn’t software development benefit from science as well?

Felienne Hermans, assistant professor at Delft University of Technology, had a very engaging talk at I T.A.K.E. Unconference 2014 about experiments designed and run to answer questions such as:

  • What is the best programming language?
  • Do design patterns help in any way?
  • Is Linus’ law correct?
  • Are spreadsheets code?

Watch her talk @ I T.A.K.E. Unconference 2014 edition to find out the results.


Check out more about I T.A.K.E. Unconference 2015 or see directly the Schedule.

I T.A.K.E. Unconference Day 1 – Slides & Videos

Jun 10, 2015

An unconference is as special as its participants. Thank you everyone – Speakers, Facilitators, Bumblebees & Butterflies for working all together, writing code, pairing, solving problems while discussing, listening and sharing knowledge.

After such an awesome gathering of practitioners, we are happy to share the presented slides.

Structured by tracks, find them all below.

I T.A.K.E. Unconference Day 1 – Slides & Videos

 

Keynote

simonbrown-squareSimon Brown: Software Architecture as Code


Hardcore Programming

stefan-kanevStefan Kanev: Clojure, ClojureScript and Why They’re Awesome

igstanIonut G. Stan: Let’s write a type checker + Code

Quality Practices 

Igor-PopovIgor Popov: Mutation Testing

MukhinaSvetlana Mukhina: Metrics that bring value

Patroklos-PapapetrouPatroklos Papapetrou: Holding Down Your Technical Debt with SonarQube

Executable Specifications 

Cyrille MartraireCyrille Martraire: Living Documentation Jumpstart

Developer’s Life

Andrew-HallAndrew Hall: Power Up: Learn How to Recharge Your Energy Bar

Krasimir-TsonevKrasimir Tsonev: 7 Rules to Get the Things Done

Thomas SundbergThomas Sundberg: The responsible Developer

Architecture

tim-perryTim Perry: Microservices and Web Components Are The Same Thing

robertIMG_2123Robert Mircea & Virgil Chereches: Our Journey to Continuous Delivery


DevOps

cegekaAndrei Petcu: Rocket vs Docker: Battle for the Linux Container

AlexAlex Bolboacă: Why you should start using Docker?

See also: Day 2 Slides & Videos

We hope to see you again at the next I T.A.K.E. Unconference edition.

The recorded videos are now being processed. Stay tuned.

Immutable data

May 05, 2016

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. 

Ricardo J. Mendez, founder at Numergent, is a software developer with 20 years of practice. He will share in his talk at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016 more about immutable data.

 

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#1. SHARE TOP 5 THINGS YOU DID THAT HELPED YOU GROW & BECOME THE PROFESSIONAL YOU ARE TODAY

Starting my own business, leaving the comfort of a company where you get a certain sense of security by deriving a regular salary, and having to deal with the hidden iceberg of new skills  I had to learn but hadn’t realized I didn’t even know about.
Joining my first start up, which wasn’t the same as a usual job, nor with the degree of control of just running my own business, was a great learning experience on how to deal with uncertainty while still aiming to provide a measure of direction.
Realizing that, as a developer, your job is not to deliver code. Your job is to keep the user happy, and delivering code is only a part of that. It requires a mental shift from the technology-focused mentality one tends to have as an engineer.
Working with distributed teams, and learning to adapt to the different work and communication styles of people from different countries, has made a huge difference in adaptability, and has taught me to not assume the message is always getting across.
Going through several technology trends and epochs, seeing language and platform flame wars rage and abate, trying a bit of everything, helps come to grips with the idea that a language or a platform is just a tool, and it’s what you do with it that matters.

 

#2. What challenges will the participants find solutions to during your session at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016?

The idea that being unable to modify your data can bring more flexibility is unintuitive.
However, the bigger our codebases grow, the harder it becomes to find out if a refactoring process, or even a seemingly small change, will have a negative impact. Test suites can reduce this uncertainty, but normally only inform us of a problem *after* we’ve made a change.  There’s usually no way to know, in advance, how time consuming the side effects of a modification will be.
A shift in mentality towards data immutability, whatever the language we are using, will help structure the code and functionality in a way that makes it easier to grow and change down the road.

 

#3. What else would you like to share with participants ?

I assemble and lead project-specific teams to tackle challenges involving interaction design, data and open source. I’ve been working on software for over 20 years, across multiple industries – from desktop tools, to banking and financial institutions, to healthcare, to gaming.
I usually work with distributed teams, as I’d rather take the expertise where I find it than expect it to be around the corner, and it leads to interesting, varied teams with different perspectives.
A voracious reader, of both technical and non-technical books, it would be strange to find me without one or two tomes in progress.  This extends to platforms and languages – I very much enjoy kicking the tires on both, always looking for something new to learn.

logo ITAKE 2016

Want to join Ricardo and many more software crafters from around Europe?Join I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016!

Remote pair programming

Apr 08, 2017

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.

Raimo Radczewski is a freelancing software craftsman living in Berlin, Germany. He’s organizing Berlin’s Software Craftsmanship Community where he supports craftspeople with professionalizing and sharpening their skills, but also reflect on their current practices and how they can work better as teams. At #itakeunconf he will be sharing about Remote Pair-programming. 

 

 

#1. Please share with us 5 things you did that helped you grow and become the professional you are today

I think the most important thing that shaped my career has been the Software Craftsmanship movement. I first went to an OpenSpace in 2012, then Coderetreats, then SoCraTes, then organizing OpenSpaces and such. The community has really supported me and helped me grow in every professional aspect I could think of.

 

#2. What challenges will the participants find solutions to during your session at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017?

The most challenging part of working remote is keeping an inter-human connection to the person on the other side to make up for the tools that so rarely work. It also helps to use the least-broken tools and find a structure that works for the individuals that want to pair up.

#3. Recommend for the participants 3 sources you find inspiration from and would help them better understand you

I draw most of my inspiration from visiting and organizing events in the communities. Additionally, the Software Craftsmanship Slack Team is a great place to start discussing with craftspeople all over the world.

Want to join Raimo and ~300 software crafters from around Europe?

Register now for I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017!

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