On (Modern?) Software Development

Sources

  1. Thoughts on (Modern?) Software Development
    Observations From a 20-Year Journey
  2. Solutions for (Modern?) Software Development
    Approximations From a 20-Year Journey
  3. Thoughts to Solutions
    Observations on (Modern?) Agility
  4. From Education to Employment
    A Requirements-Set for Modern Software Developers

“Thoughts on (Modern?) Software Development – Observations From a 20-Year Journey”

The Traveler

[starting] Characteristics –Software Development (1)

Warning – The anecdote

Warning – The scientific study

Experience – In real life

Excerpt from the foreword of „The Peter Principle”

„[…] Death Is Nature’s Warning to Slow Down

As individuals we tend to climb to our levels of incompetence.

We behave as though up is better and more is better, and yet all around us we see the tragic victims of this mindless escalation.

We see men in groups, and most of the human race, struggling for status on a treadmill to oblivion, escalating warfare and weaponry to overkill the population of the world, escalating production of power and products while polluting the environment and upsetting the life-supporting ecological balance.

If man is going to rescue himself from a future intolerable existence, he must first see where his unmindful escalation is leading him. He must examine his objectives and see that true progress is achieved through moving forward to a better way of life, rather than upward to total life incompetence. Man must realize that improvement of the quality of experience is more important than the acquisition of useless artifacts and material possessions. He must reassess the meaning of life and decide whether he will use his intellect and technology for the preservation of the human race and the development of the humanistic characteristics of man, or whether he will continue to utilize his creative potential in escalating a super-colossal deathtrap.

Man, on occasion, has caught a glimpse of his reflection in a mirror, and not immediately recognizing himself, has begun to laugh before realizing what he was doing. It is in such moments that true progress toward understanding has occurred. This book is intended to be that mirror.

LAURENCE J. PETER

August, 1970″

Learning – Dreyfus-Model (1): Overview

Learning – Dreyfus-Model (2): Details

Learning – Dreyfus-Model (3): Details

Learning – Dreyfus-Model (4): Implications

Learning – Refactor Your Wetware

Excursion – Cognitive Biases (1)

Excursion – Cognitive Biases (2)

Software Development „in the wild“

Factors of influence

Excursion – Imagination?

Imagination!

Coder – „Precision“

Coder – „Guess Work”

Coder – „Unreliable Data“ (1)

Coder – „Unreliable Data“ (2)

Coder – „Unreliable Data“ (3)

Coder – „Questionable Knowledge“ (1)

Coder – „Questionable Knowledge“ (2)

Excursion/Rant – „Normal“ humans

Excursion/Rant – „Coding“ humans

Coder – Observations

[continued] Characteristics – Software Development (2)

Coder – Hype Driven Development

Current Hype – Large Language Models (1)

Current Hype – Large Language Models (2)

Current Hype – Large Language Models (3)

Current Hype – Large Language Models (4)

Current Hype – Large Language Models (5)

Current Hype – Large Language Models (6)

[continued] Characteristics – Software Development (3)

Challenges (Micro 1)

An Example – What is (subjectively) hard?

Challenges (Micro 2) – Naming

Challenges (Micro 3) – Simplicity

Challenges (Macro 1)

Challenges (Macro 2)

Challenges (Macro 3)

Challenges (Macro 4)

Challenges (Macro 5)

The journey so far… (1)

The journey so far… (2)

The journey so far… (3)

The journey so far… (4)

The journey so far… (5)

The journey goes on… (1)

The journey goes on… (2)

The journey goes on… (3)

The journey goes on… (4)

Excerpt from „This is water”

[…] Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship – be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles – is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.

They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn’t sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish. But please don’t just dismiss it as just some finger-wagging Dr Laura sermon. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.

The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. […]”

The journey goes on… (5)

Additional sources mentioned in „Thoughts on (Modern?) Software Development”-related discussions:

“Solutions for (Modern?) Software Development – Approximations From a 20-Year Journey”

The Traveler

[Recap] Characteristics –Software Development

[Recap] The anecdote

[Recap] Simplicity

[Recap] Professional Software Development

The Status Quo – Observations (1)

The Status Quo – Observations (2)

The Status Quo – Observations (3)

The Status Quo – Observations (4)

The Status Quo – Observations (5)

The Status Quo – Observations (6)

The Status Quo – Observations (7)

The Status Quo – Observations (8)

The Status Quo – “The Cloud”

The Real Challenge – “The Cloud”

Umm, so Alex: What is IT all about?

Umm, so Alex: What is IT all about? (1)

Managing Complexity – The core questions…

Managing Complexity – What might be a fix?

Managing Complexity – More questions…

Managing Complexity – (d)MiB (1)

Managing Complexity – (d)MiB (2)

Managing Complexity – (d)MiB (3)

Managing Complexity – (d)MiB (4)

Managing Complexity – Check your metaphors (1)

Managing Complexity – Check your metaphors (2)

Umm, so Alex: What is IT all about? (2)

Managing Cognitive Load – The problem (1)

Managing Cognitive Load – The problem (2)

Managing Cognitive Load – The environment (1)

Managing Cognitive Load – The environment (2)

Managing Cognitive Load – Optimizations

Managing Cognitive Load – Optimize your attention (1)

Managing Cognitive Load – Optimize your attention (2)

Managing Cognitive Load – Optimize for distractions (1)

Managing Cognitive Load – Optimize for distractions (2)

Managing Cognitive Load – Optimize for distractions (3)

Managing Cognitive Load – Optimize for distractions (4)

Managing Cognitive Load – Optimize for distractions (5)

Managing Cognitive Load – Prevent inconsistencies

Managing Cognitive Load – Never forget…

Umm, so Alex: What is IT all about? (3)

Human Interactions – Are you kidding me!? (1)

Human Interactions – Are you kidding me!? (2)

Human Interactions – The Project Management Triangle

Human Interactions – The Software Management Triangle

Human Interactions – This thing called trust…

Human Interactions – What matters most in IT? (1)

Human Interactions – What matters most in IT? (2)

Human Interactions – What matters most in IT? (3)

Human Interactions – Gelled teams (1)

Human Interactions – Gelled teams (2)

Human Interactions – Gelled teams (3)

Human Interactions – Gelled teams (4)

Human Interactions – Gelled teams (5)

Human Interactions – Gelled teams (6)

Human Interactions – Gelled teams (7)

Human Interactions – The Learning organization

Umm, so Alex: What is IT all about? (4)

How Humans Tick – The way we operate…

How Humans Tick – Refactor Your Wetware

How Humans Tick – The Dreyfus-Model (1)

How Humans Tick – The Dreyfus-Model (2)

How Humans Tick – The Dreyfus-Model (3)

How Humans Tick – The Dreyfus-Model (4)

How Humans Tick – Cognitive Biases (1)

How Humans Tick – Cognitive Biases (2)

How Humans Tick – Sustainable pace (1)

How Humans Tick – Sustainable pace (2)

How Humans Tick – Sustainable pace (3)

Ok now, Alex: What’s the goal? (1)

Ok now, Alex: What’s the goal? (2)

Ok now, Alex: What’s the goal? (3)

The journey goes on… (1)

The journey goes on… (2)

The journey goes on… (3)

„Thoughts to Solutions – Observations on (Modern?) Agility”

The Traveler

Professional Software Development (1)

Professional Software Development (2)

Agile Software Development (1)

Agile Software Development (2)

Professional Work Modes

Professional Meeting Modes

Solutions for (Modern?) Software Development (1)

Solutions for (Modern?) Software Development (2)

“From Education to Employment – A Requirements-Set for Modern Software Developers”

The Traveler

Agenda – Overview

Agenda – The Environment

The Environment – Where are you heading to?

The Environment – Factors of influence

The Environment – Imagination?

The Environment – Imagination!

The Environment – Challenges

Agenda – The Tools

The Tools – Learning

The Tools – Learning: The Dreyfus Model

The Tools – Refactor Your Wetware

The Tools – Experience from 10.000 feet…

The Tools – Experience in real life…

Exkurs – The anecdote

Exkurs – The scientific study

The Tools – Your head

Agenda – The Coding

The Coding – Characteristics of software development

The Coding – Characteristics of software projects

The Coding – Simplicity (1)

The Coding – Simplicity (2)

The Coding – Simplicity (3)

The Coding – Simplicity (4)

The Coding – Technical Debt

The Coding – Automatic testing

The Coding – Refactoring

The Coding – What is (subjectively) hard?

The Coding – Naming

Agenda – The Summary

The Summary – Takeaways

The journey goes on… (1)

The journey goes on… (2)

The journey goes on… (3)