Collage of Thoughts - VIII

Attended the 4-day #GIDS conference a month ago, with an employer-sponsored all-access pass. Managed to grab first-row seats for all luminary keynotes/sessions, but that’s just how far I went. ;) I am shy to approach celebs, so of course did not bother any of them before/after their sessions.

The most novel sessions for me were the keynote by Michael Carducci (an engaging speaker I hadn’t even known of before), and the session on App Security and open-source vulnerabilities by Steve Poole. Neal Ford’s keynote and sessions were great of course! - but I follow his work quite a bit, which took away from the novelty. Also there was a bit of overlap in content with his co-author’s - Mark Richards.

Steve Poole spoke of the global cybercrime industry’s gigantic turnover that could topple the 3rd-by-GDP nation, the upcoming bar-raising EU legislation that makes companies legally/criminally liable for shipping software with known vulnerabilities, and the role that tools like BOM Doctor could play in securing the SBOM (Software Bill of Materials), and in making provable, evidence-based releases.

Michael Carducci was a revelation. A real-life professional techie/architect, professional magician, and perhaps the most gifted of speakers in the speaker line-up; his keynote was aptly titled after the famous quote - "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". He spoke of why it’s important for individuals and teams to cultivate range and breadth, and how creative problem-solving in wickedly complex domains demand several diverse mental models in your toolkit. And how finding a solution may just depend on one rare linchpin knowledge that comes from connecting ideas and mental models from two/more diverse domains at once. This keynote (and few other sessions) truly reflected his own range and breadth across various subject matters. He also treated the audience to a complimentary card trick, deftly partitioning red and black cards from a reversed and shuffled (by an audience member) deck – and I had my little Christie-fan moment! :)

#developersummit #GIDS

Ted Neward's "Managers are from Mars, Developers are from Venus" is a talk especially relevant for management consultants at a time when the McKinsey developer productivity measurement framework has evoked strong reactions from expert practitioners and industry stalwarts alike.

The talk gives a real peek into the recesses of a developer's mind when they are deep into coding. It explains the blank stares you get from them when you interrupt their "flow state", why they find your meetings so inhibiting to their progress, or why noise-levels on the floor should be as low as possible.

As many experts have pointed out - development is in fact a craft, where traditional management (command-and-control) and metrics fall apart. Having played quite a few tech roles in my career so far - I most enviously know dev to be the only role that lets you slip into a "flow-state" every single day. And as Ted rightly points out - "every human being craves this state" - if I may humbly add, provided they have ever known this state without resorting to any kind of substance abuse! :)

#devproductivity #flowstate

[Re-posted from my recently authored posts on LinkedIn]