itakeunconf.com

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.

#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

3 books I definitely recommend: Steal the Show, Thinking, Fast and Slow and No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline

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

Announcements

Progressive Web Apps – The Future

Mar 29, 2017

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.

speaker-badge-professional-status-vlad-zelinschi

#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.

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

Announcements

Powering Interactive Data Analysis with Google BigQuery

Mar 29, 2017

Marton Kodok is a Senior Software Architect REEA, who led the implementation of complex and distributed systems. At #itakeunconf 2017, he will share more about Powering Interactive Data Analysis with Google BigQuery.

speaker-badge-professional-status-marton-kodok

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

It all started when I was posting answers for the Stackoverflow community and the reputation started to grow over 100k. I realized that being a professional is a constant effort and never ending learning of new cool stuff. To be up to speed you need to constantly shift to emerging technologies. You see the merit when your answer voted and uncounted millions of people also learn.

We need to be open-minded and have a mentor around us to grow. As you might not have a mentor close to you in person, you can leverage online communities such as Stackoverflow, a community that helps you grow. It helped me.

Then when you take it offline and be supportive & active in local communities, participate in Startup Weekends, community projects you believe in – you will be able to work on fun stuff. Also being part of an IT company such as REEA, it helped me become a professional by all the great startup projects I had to work on, the colleagues, the clients, and also the conference participations.

In 2016, I was nominated and accepted into the Google Developers Experts program. Having my exemplary work recognized by the greatest company in the IT industry and pointing me as an expert and outstanding professional, it gives me new goals to achieve even more.

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

Nowadays there are dozens of options to choose how you architect your project for next level of data analytics. We will cover how Google BigQuery helps to solve the petabyte scale data warehousing, and ability to write complex queries for your dashboards.

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

My inspiration inbox is Feedly, there I consume all sorts of content I really enjoy reading: High Scalability, Percona Blogs, Codrops, Medium, SIMB.

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

Announcements

Building a multiplayer game server and keeping (most of) your hair

Mar 24, 2017

Opher Vishnia, Creative Developer at Interlude, is a multidisciplinary creator, invested in many different and often unrelated fields at the same time: computer science, art, music, design, math, game development and more. He is going to share at #itakeunconf more about building a multiplayer game server.

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

√ Invest in personal projects. Think of a project that you think is fun to make and just start hacking at it. Developing something for yourself, where you make all the decisions rather than for a company you work for, is an amazing tool for learning and growing.

√ Join in the conversation. Is there an online group or a meetup for your area of development? That’s a great way to make new personal connections and learn along the way

√ Find an open source project that you like and start contributing. A good place to start would be a tool or library that you already know and use. Your contribution doesn’t have to be code – you can open an issue, improve the documentation or write a tutorial.

√ Take initiative. Is there something in your workplace that can be done better and sounds interesting to play with? Step up and do it. Suggest researching a new topic, or introducing a new tool the workflow. It’ll provide an interesting new challenge and a break from the daily routine. Plus it’ll make you look cool.

√ Stay optimistic. Sometimes these challenges are frustrating, and there are days you won’t make any progress, but the moment you have that “a-ha” moment is worth it all.

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

Participants will learn about why making synchronized multiplayer games in the browser is so hard and what solutions do we have at our disposal to tackle those.

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

√ Codepen.io is a wonderful tool for inspiration on the web

√ Games in general. Just get Steam and play something!

√ Multiplayer Game Programming: Architecting Networked Game by Josh Glazer & Sanjay Madhav – A very comprehensive book on all things multiplayer

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

Women In Tech

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock | #womenintech interview

Mar 23, 2017

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock is the object design pioneer who invented the set of design practices known as Responsibility-Driven Design (RDD), the first behavioral approach to object design. She is the lead author of two software design books and design columnist for IEEE Software. By accident, she started the x-Driven Design meme (TDD, DDD, BDD…). Although best known for software design, she is has a passion simply expressing complex requirements and effectively communicating software architecture. Rebecca joined #itakeunconf in 2013 as keynote, at the first edition of the unconference.

When sharing more about #womenintech, Rebecca is one of the most important role models ladies in the field mention or look up to. Read on to find her professional story and lessons learned along the way.

#1. What’s your professional story? Why did you choose to develop a career in this domain?

I went to university with no idea what I would major in. I liked both sciences and the humanities. I had a part time job at school grading tests. We’d scan the tests (which were marked in pencil) onto a tape, then take that tape to the computer center. They would run a job to print out students’ test results and grades.

I wanted to learn how that program worked. So for fun, I took my first computing class learning FORTRAN. And I was hooked. Writing programs was not only fun; programs could do something useful. So that is how I discovered programming—by accident. I liked solving problems by programming. I still do.

#2. Share with us an important lesson you’ve learned since you’ve been working in IT

I’ve learned that you won’t know if something is possible unless you try doing it. Sometimes we hold ourselves back because we don’t think we can do what seems like some seemingly impossible task. If you are a part of a team, you can do even more great things than you can on your own.

Being a software engineer at Tektronix (a company that made oscilloscopes and workstations, among other hardware products), I learned that with good team collaboration, the right management support, and the belief in what we were doing, we could do amazing things. I have taken this spirit of collaboration and can-do attitude with me throughout my career.

#3. What piece of advice would you give to the next generation of #womenintech?

Keep learning. The programming languages, tools, libraries, and database technologies you work with 10 years from now will be different from those you use today. There’s always something new to learn. Don’t just limit yourself to learning new programming languages and tools or the latest popular libraries. Take some time to learn things outside of your daily work. For example, I turn to blog by Adrian Colyer, The Morning Paper, https://blog.acolyer.org/. I find reading about technology trends and research stretches my brain. And then I get on with my daily work.

Take some time to learn things outside of your daily work. For example, I turn to blog by Adrian Colyer, The Morning Paper. I find reading about technology trends and research stretches my brain. And then I get on with my daily work.

But more importantly, take time to find, study, and learn about well-designed code and systems. Learn what makes one codebase more easily maintained than another, or what makes one easier to understand or test. Read others’ code. There’s a lot you can learn.

At I T.A.K.E Unconference, we aim to move the needle by offering to women in tech access to a fast-learning, practical & inspirational community for their growth. Join the 5th edition, 11-12 May, Bucharest and meet remarkable tech ladies.

Women In Tech

Let’s make a difference, together! – Women in tech @I T.A.K.E Unconference

Mar 08, 2017

Less than 1 in 4 leadership roles in the tech industry are held by women. This situation can be improved, for sure!

At I T.A.K.E Unconference, we aim to move the needle by offering to women in tech access to a fast-learning, practical & inspirational community for their growth.

Each year, remarkable women crafters join #itakeunconf. At this edition, you can meet:

Felienne Hermans | Keynote | University Assistant & Founder | Research in the programming field
Karina Popova, Head of Development | Artificial Intelligence & IoT
Alexandra Marin, Software developer | Mobile Development

Let’s not stop here! Help us meet other remarkable women, from your teams and communities!

For you to easier join us, we are offering a free ticket and a special discount to tech ladies who will share with us one lesson learned from the IT trenches.
Let us know in a comment your story / experience / lesson learned while working in IT. The most inspirational story will win a free ticket. Everyone sharing their experience & lessons learned will receive 40% discount from the Standard ticket price (in the limit of available seats). Deadline to submit your story is March 16th.

We will announce the winner on March 22nd.

I T.A.K.E Unconference, 5th edition, 11-12 Bucharest. 6 keynotes, +30 international speakers, and an intense and dynamic program with topics like DevOps, AI, IoT, Software Design, Mobile, Architecture, Open Space, Kata Lounge, Programming Contest and more is in the row. Register now!

Announcements

In-Process or Inter-Processes Communication at Deploy Time

Mar 03, 2017

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?

Announcements

Impact Mapping | Patrick Baumgartner

Feb 15, 2017

Patrick Baumgartner works as a Software Craftsman and passionate Agilista at 42talents. His biggest goal is to improve everyone’s workplace in IT. At #itakeunconf, he will run an Impact Mapping workshop.

speaker-badge-professional-status-patrick-baumgartner

#1. Share with us 5 things from your experience that helped you grow & become the professional you are today

having a mentor who supports you is great and helps you to challenge your ideas and decisions
being curious helps you to continuously learn new things
teaching others helps you to get better on the topic and you learn how to explain things to others
meeting continuously new people to create new ideas and get inspiration
having enough rest so that your brain has time for recreation

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

[ctt template=”12″ link=”A831F” via=”no” ]With Impact Mapping you will learn an excellent strategic planning technique that helps you to look at your challenges from different angles[/ctt]

If someone wants to have something solved, he often has already a concrete idea in mind and tells you how to implement it.

With changing the focus and looking at the Why, Who, How and the What your final solution might be entirely different compared to the initial suggestion. You will realize that you can use this technique for nearly everything.

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

Learn from and with others, by getting involved in local / international practitioners communities. For example, we run in Zurich a monthly Software Craftsmanship Meetup with very diverse topics
Attend conferences to get inspired by the talks and workshops, as well as the discussions with participants and other speakers.
Take time for yourself, relax, free your mind and new ideas and thoughts will pop up automatically!

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

Announcements

16 years of legacy code with mob programming and Lego | Joe Wright

Feb 13, 2017

Joe Wright, Senior Developer, Coach & Architect, helps people deliver software that’s well designed, fully tested and released early. You will learn from his case study at #itakeunconf about how a team can go from individuals to a mob.

speaker-badge-professional-status-joe-wright

#1. Share with us 5 things from your experience that helped you grow & become the professional you are today

# Make time for deep work

Set a few hour blocks aside each week that you will dedicate to improving yourself or creating something each week. As a parent, I’ve had to start doing this by getting up early to grab two hours each day. During this time you can learn a skill, practice coding, write a book or make a podcast. It’s far too easy to let distractions rule your life. Make time to do something you are proud of.

# Become a facilitator

I think everyone is terrified of public speaking. It’s an unnatural thing to do. Our ancestors learned this behavior as a survival instinct – if lots of carnivores are looking at you then you are probably the dinner. Time to run.

Getting over this is an important step that enables you to have all sorts of life experiences. Speaking at conferences, leading workshops and meeting interesting new people. The way I beat the fear was by volunteering to co-organise a well-attended meetup. Each month I would have to get up in front of a room of my peers and say some boilerplate about welcome and the agenda. But just that act of getting up and speaking was enough to dull the fear over time. I’ve not been made into dinner yet.

As well as building yourself up as a speaker, it helps improve your network of people. People like speaking to the host at an event and it gives you an easy opportunity to learn about those people, then take a mental note when you might want to get into contact with them in the future.

# Ask for help

Don’t feel you have to figure everything out yourself or read up online. Reach out and ask people for help.

As you spend more time in your career you meet more people – and one day you’ll have a question you’d love to ask them. It’s even easier now with social media and video conferencing. People will give you 30 minutes of time online or meet you over coffee to give you their advice if they think you’ve got an interesting question to answer.

I always have a list of three things I want advice on. You never know who you are going to meet.

# Improve in more than one dimension

At first, newly minted developers want to get projects released and in users hands. During this, you try to get better at creating software that can be changed to meet their needs. Eventually, newer technology comes out, which promises to solve the problem of getting code out quicker and is easier to change.

It’s quite easy to fall into the trap of just learning technology stacks. This can be rewarding, but that’s not the only way to improve as a developer and meet people’s needs.

Seek out opportunities to see the world from the other functions in software. If you tester goes on holiday then volunteer to stand in for them. If you have an ops team then ask to pair on making the release process smoother. Facilitate a retrospective for another team. Run a usability session with real world users to see how your product is used. Stepping into another roles shoes helps build empathy, which will allow you to work better with others people in the future.

If you tech stack isn’t challenging you then concentrate on improving your “soft skills”. Teach someone how it works. Figure out ways to promote and resolve conflict on your team. Fix the root causes of communication and process issues that slow you down.

# Find people that will challenge you

It can be hard to get feedback about how you are doing. Are your ideas valid? Often you can’t get this feedback in your workplace. Seek out a group of people or a person that is willing to challenge how you think.

For me, this is the Lean Agile space and my local code craftsmanship group.

Consider these people that challenge you your core group. The way you work should be consistent with the ideals of that group. So don’t ever worry about saying what you think at work, just make sure you stay true to the principles of your core group.

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

How can I reduce communication, approval, and tech debt issues from slowing down my team?
How can I measure and improve how a dev team spends their time?
How can I get started doing this at my work?

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

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport (book)
Facilitation advice – available here
The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox (book)

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