The Pyramid of Programming Skillsets with Alex Bolboaca

Nov 26, 2014 by Madalina Botez in Announcements

Unit testing, code review, TDD, BDD, refactoring, legacy code techniques, pair programming, continuous integration, architecture styles … So many things to learn and so little time.

In his talk at I TAKE Unconference 2014, Alexandru Bolboaca described a model that allows a programmer to organize these practices in an order that is most helpful for her career. At the same time, it allows a CTO or technical manager to roughly evaluate the teams he’s leading and figure out the next steps in their development.

Enjoy his talk @ I T.A.K.E. Unconference 2014 edition.

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

Code and win a cool gadget: Programming Contest

May 16, 2016

I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016 is right ahead of us: almost 300 software crafters from Europe will challenge, change & improve the world of software craftsmanship.

This year edition offers the convergence of a technical-centric event combined with an audience of international top-notch participants, networking opportunities & a space where new ideas spark.

Are you up to a challenge?

But wait…this is not all. We’ve prepared for you a set of challenges that will put your coding skills to test. Join the programming contest, show your coding skills in a competition with software crafters across Europe & get the chance to win one of the cool prizes we have prepared: a Samsung Galaxy S7 (offered by Mozaic Works) or a Samsung Gear Smartwatch (offered by MozaicLabs).

HOW THE PROGRAMMING CONTEST WORKS?

Well, this is simple. We try to automate the process as much as possible. For the moment the instructions are as simple as:

Register for THE contest on May 19 (the link to register will be communicated in the morning of 19th May)
Solve the challenges
Submit the solutions until May 20, 2 pm

Really cool: you can use ANY of the following programming languages: Java, C#, PHP, C++.

WHO WILL REVIEW YOUR CODE?

The Jury is built of Software Craftsman Fellows from Europe – names soon to be announced. They will grade each challenge you took. There will be just a few challenges, and taking all of them may lead you to the highest score. So the more you solve the closer to win.

Don’t miss the Programming Contest as well as many other hands-on sessions at I T.A.K.E. Unconference, 19-20 May, Bucharest.

In-Process or Inter-Processes Communication at Deploy Time

Mar 03, 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.

Florin Coroș, Co-Founder and Partner iQuarc, is a passionate software architect and developer who has been working for more than 10 years in a wide variety of business applications using Microsoft technologies. At #itakeunconf, Florin is sharing more about In-Process or Inter-Processes Communication at Deploy Tim e.

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

There might be a fortunate series of events, which fit nicely with my personality and abilities.

One of the things that helped me a great deal, was the fact that I changed the contexts and projects often. Even if I worked for the same company and the same technologies for about 10 years, I have changed the projects, the clients and my role at least once in two years. It wasn’t something that I had planned, but I always wanted to learn and experience new things.

Change is always challenging and creates opportunity for learning and for professional growth.

Another important thing for me, I think it was the fact that I always look for professional models. First, I discovered Uncle Bob, then there were Martin Fowler, J.B. Rainsberger, Roy Osherove, Kent Beck, Juval Lowe, Jurgen Appelo, Richard Campbel, and many others (I remember having a slide with some of these guy’s pictures in one of my first talks I’ve given at a conference ☺ ). Reading their books and articles, and then trying to apply their ideas in my day to day work, inspired and helped me.

Attending to training and conferences is another important thing. The TDD workshop with J.B. Rainsberger, which I attended back in 2010 was a few years jump ahead in my career. After, there were many other high-quality training I had the opportunity to attend, like the IDesign Master Class with Richard Campbel, a workshop with Dan North, or a Requirements course with Kay and Tom Gilb.

Coding just to practice is another thing that makes a difference. I learned this at the Code Retreats and I’ve kept this good habit. From time to time I take a few hours and I just write code with the purpose of learning or practicing. It always pays back.

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

In large enterprise applications, there is always the challenge of decomposing the system. From performance considerations we may end up loading all the services in one or two processes, ending up with a monolith, which doesn’t scale and it is costly to maintain. At the other end, we have one process for each service resulting in too many inter-process call hops to handle one user request, which is bad for performance and it may be costly to maintain.

I’ll show a way, which I’ve applied in some projects I’ve architected, on how to separate this communication concern from implementing the business functionality.

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

My blog of course ☺ onCodeDesign.com . There, it is more about me and my thoughts
.NET Rocks (https://www.dotnetrocks.com/) is a podcast I recommend especially to .NET developers, and also to any geeks
As a hobby, I recommend learning and playing GO. Even if it a time-consuming game, it is a very good exercise for the mind.

Want to meet Florin, +30 international speakers and ~300 software crafters from around Europe?

Mocks are mocking at you?

Apr 13, 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.

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?

Join I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016!