Welcome to my blog “On (Modern?) Software Development – Observations from a 20 years-long journey”.
My name is Alexander Thurow.
In the year 2005 after graduating as “Diplom-Wirtschaftsinformatiker (FH)”(*) from Leuphana Lüneburg I started my journey into the field of professional software development.
(*) computer science and business administration at a university of applied sciences
The Idea
The idea of this website is to deliver a “travel journal” related to that, still ongoning, journey.
In retrospect the journey took me to the following (chronologically ordered) intermediate destinations:
- Software developer (at every point in time during the journey)
- Supporter
- Technical trainer
- Consultant
- Team and (interim-)project leader
- “Communicator”
- Mentor (for junior developers)
- Knowledge transfer (Codecamps and After Work Talks)
- Lecturer and speaker
The Motivation, 1. Iteration
The idea of creating this travel journal first came up in 2016. Back then my boss came into my office and asked me whether I wanted to deliver a talk at a german university of applied sciences. The university offered companies the opportunity to present themselves to the students with a talk. The respective talk’s topic was not limited to any predetermined themes.
After thinking about it for a while, I decided to bootstrap a talk titled “From Education to Employment: A requirements-set for modern software developers”. The key question that I wanted to answer back then was:
“What are the software development topics that I would have liked to know about when I commenced my career in the field?”
Over the next years I refined the talk as I proceeded on my journey.
The Motivation, 2. Iteration
In 2021 I decided (partly under the impression of the Corona epidemic) to redesign the talk in such a way that I would be able to present it to the larger audience of software development professionals during my After Work Talk activities. The new question to be aswered back then was:
“What have I been witnessing in my last 16 years of professional software development and what do have I deemed ‘important and newsworthy’?”
The ensuing result was the premiere of my talk “Thoughts on (Modern?) Software Development – Observations from a 17 years-long journey” on 13.10.2022 at JUG Darmstadt.
Again, I continued to refine the talk over the next years. In 2024 I decided to finally present it at the “ASQF Net Week” conference. On this occasion the (german) talk was recorded, and is now available on Youtube:

And because we all are moving on the timeline into the future…
The Motivation, 3. Iteration
Mid-2024 I started with the conception of my new talk “Solutions for (Modern?) Software Development – Approximations from a 20 years-long journey”.
When I finished that undertaking, I decided to create this website.
The Future
As of today I will start documenting my journey through the field of professional software development here. Especially my activities around my talks will be a focal point of this page.
Additionally it needs to be stated that – as everyone knows – the future is “The Undiscovered Country”… which of course directly leads back to my cloudy “Communicator” statement above:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Star_Trek_and_Star_Wars
… my heart is definitely the heart of a Trekkie :-)!
Therefore:
Live long and prosper,
Alex
(aka: The Traveler)