Test-Drive your Database & the 4 Rules of Simple Design

Apr 27, 2016 by Madalina Botez in  Announcements
 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. 

 

Alastair Smith, developer at Redgate and founder of the Cambridge Software Craftsmanship Community in the UK and a co-organiser of DDD East Anglia, will join this edition of I T.A.K.E Unconference. After attending his sessions, participants will be able to use their programming language to clearly express a program’s purpose and stop writing the programming equivalent of legalese. They will be able to write unit tests for their own SQL code and enjoy database development again.
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#1. SHARE TOP 5 THINGS YOU DID THAT HELPED YOU GROW & BECOME THE PROFESSIONAL YOU ARE TODAY

The five things that put me on this path were:
  1. Reading software development books hungrily in the first few years of my career. Texts such as Code Complete and especially The Pragmatic Programmer and Test-Driven Development by Example were hugely influential on my early career and the direction I chose to take. The Pragmatic Programmer in particular is worth re-reading: I didn’t fully understand some parts of it as a fresh graduate joining the industry, and the experience I’ve built up over the last ten years has allowed me to get more from it on each later reading.
  2. Attending developer meetups, user groups, and conferences. Aside from the knowledge gained from the talks and workshops run at these events, they’re an invaluable opportunity to meet other developers, learn from their experiences, and about the local software industry.
  3. Finding a good mentor. As it turned out, my mentoring was very unofficial: a former colleague of mine guided me in the ways of professional software development, and pointed me in the direction of books, blogs, and other resources to learn from. His advice was invaluable in helping me discover techniques for writing good tests (and why tests are important), the importance of refactoring, and the foundational principles of Object-Oriented Design, such as SOLID. All of this at the beginning of my career, in an environment where I wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to such topics.
  4. Understanding people as well as tech. As technical people, we can often be quite blinded to the problems around us and focus on the tools and technologies rather than the underlying collaborations with other people.
  5. Applying principles I’d learned elsewhere to my profession. I play a lot of music, and have been for over 20 years; as such, the idea of deliberate practice is quite a familiar one to me, and applying this principle to the techniques used in software development made a lot of sense. Participating in and organising things like Dojos and Code Retreats has helped me understand and improve my own development process enormously.

 

#2. WHAT CHALLENGES WILL THE PARTICIPANTS FIND SOLUTIONS TO DURING YOUR SESSIONS @ I T.A.K.E UNCONFERENCE 2016?

Database changes are difficult to get right, and objects like Stored Procedures and Functions can be particularly hard to work on. We’ll take a tour of test-driven development, and how we can apply it to our database objects to reduce risk in deployment. We’ll also look at how we can set up a CI server to run our new database tests automatically, just as we would for application code.
We’ve all had to read contracts at various points, e.g. when renting a flat, or borrowing money, or the EULAs that ship with software (and who actually reads those, right?). These contracts are generally written in “legalese”, the language of lawyers that is so concerned with being fully precise, and closing loopholes created by interpretation, that documents written in this language become obscure and the meaning obfuscated.
Just as human languages are a communication tool, so are programming languages, and we have our own form of legalese: code that’s far too concerned with implementation details, such as nested for loops, if statements, etc. Refactoring helps us move away from this, but where should we head? If we’re writing new code, how can we best express ourselves in the code we write?
 

#3. WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE WITH PARTICIPANTS?

Creativity is an important part of my life: I play the bassoon to a high standard and recently started singing. As well as music, I enjoy cooking, and working with chocolate; photography; and losing myself in a good book. William Boyd is a favourite author, and having recently enjoyed The Hunger Games series, I’m continuing my dystopian fiction streak with the Divergent series.
Similar to the Craftsmanship metaphor for software, I like collecting “real-life” examples of software delivery ideas. Ask me about minimum viable cathedrals, or the early Sputnik launches.
I’m super-excited about Star Wars: Rogue One!
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Want to join Alastair and many more software crafters from around Europe?

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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!

Developers are not computers

Mar 29, 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.

Csaba Patkos, Team Lead Syneto, is a technical practitioner with 15 years of experience in the field. Joining #itakeunconf 2017 as speaker, he will share more in his talk about his experience of growing up as a team leader, mentor, and coach for the team he works with daily.

 

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

  • Reading … I mean a lot. 40-50 books / year are doable. They can mix in a few novels / literature as well.
  • Made plans and fought to achieve them. Think about where you want to be in 6 months or 1 year and define the steps you need to take to get there.
  •  I love programming and software engineering. I do it daily, with dedication.
  • Built some useful daily habits that are helping me to get better. For example listen to audio books when driving, daily reading, daily plan of work, etc.
  • Talked to the people I admire and I used these talks as sources of inspiration. So, don’t be afraid to approach your professional idols, they are people just like you.

 


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

 

√ Some people just won’t listen to you.

√ Some people just want to force their ideas on you.

√ Some people don’t care about the topic, they just pick fights with you.

√ Some people think you don’t care, even though you really do.

√ Other communication issues.


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

ITAKE_2017

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

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Progressive Web Apps – The Future

Mar 29, 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.

 

Vlad Zelinschi, Technical Lead, GDE (Google Developer Expert) at 3Pillar Global, is going to share in his talk at #itakeunconf 2017 about Progressive Web Apps (Service Workers, Push Notifications, HTTP 2.0) that bring the best of mobile sites and native applications to users.

 

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

Growth never stops. Or at least not if you allow it. And it’s the single, most important aspect of a professional’s life in order to stay relevant in this field. I’ve found that growth for me happens especially when I get out of my comfort zone. Always try to do that. Don’t settle for what you already know. Push forward. Sometimes it will be hard. That’s why another thing that can fuel your growth is asking for help. Don’t be shy, everyone is learning. Just be humble when you do it. Follow people in your branch (Twitter, blogs, newsletters) and engage in discussions with them. Ask for feedback and be open to constructive criticism. And no matter what you learn, the single most important skill you can develop is learning in itself. So learn to learn first. That will be insanely helpful and will make you very adaptive.

 

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

The participants will get the chance to engage and connect with new technologies (Service Workers, Push Notifications, App Manifest, etc.). They will also be faced with a new approach to building apps (offline-first requires a different mind shift and planning to achieve it) which I hope they will embrace.

 

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

√ Search for Service Workers, Push Notifications, App Manifest, PRPL pattern, App shell, etc.
√ Look for Google articles especially from their network – https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/.
√ Follow people on the web/Twitter like Jake Archibald, Ilya Grigorik, Addy Osmani & read their blogs.
ITAKE_2017

 

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

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