Showing posts with label Community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Community. Show all posts

26 June, 2013

The seemingly separate world of tiered development enclaves.

I realise the subject of this post is a bit of a mouthful but it was the best I could do to summarise what I'm thinking.  In the world of software development there are often a series of cliques based on languages and/or platforms.   In other words, we have our Java/C#/Python/Ruby/Erlang/Scala/etc. running on Solaris/Linux/FreeBSD/Windows platforms.   There are tight knit groups fervently gathered around almost any combination of those two collections.

The impetus for this rambling is that there are expectations that each group places upon everyone regardless of group.  For the Java/C# crowd, as an example, there is an expectation of certain protocols and mannerisms of doing things such as the use of SOAP and XML for webservices or the Python/Ruby/Node.js equivalent crowd touting heavy use of JSON and ReST based systems.  

What amazes me is that the more closed in a group, the greater the expectation that the world does everything the same way seems to grow, not shrink.  Note that this doesn't imply everyone, just a surprisingly larger number than anticipated (by a long shot).  I don't mean to imply this is across the board with no exceptions.  People used to working with web services in Java utilizing SOAP and XML seemingly care little (and know less of) the more current alternatives such as JSON and the various frameworks and standards.  This is a problem because it leads to an adversarial misunderstanding which I think holds back collaborative situations as well as opportunities to expose individuals into a more cross environment manner of function.  

I know that with my near-two decades of professional experience that I have worked in a core of languages (Perl, PHP, Python, Javascript, Ruby, ARexx, Pascal, etc.) with a series of acronym based technologies and formats (JSON, XML, PostScript, YAML, etc.) but that there are people out there flabbergasted to find that I've never had to work with CORBA, SOAP, XSLT, COM or even something as innocuous as certain frameworks whether Cake, Struts, Catalyst, .Net or Seaside.  

The reaction is often one of shock and confusion because for so many, the entire world revolves around a solid set of standards, practices, protocols and languages which without, so many would feel like a fish out of water.  In reality there are only so many ways to write an 'If loop', or an iteration over objects in an array/list/hash/tuple/set, etc.  There are only so many ways to re-implement MVC frameworks or 3rd party libraries.  

I often make it a practice to keep current with the langauges, frameworks and protcols of my not-so-close (codebase wise) friends so my familiarity is there, and has actually benefitted me during technical interviews over the years.  This ties into what I'm saying, I will come back off of this slight detour.  I was at an interview for a perl position at a large development company in the King of Prussia, PA area back in the early 2000's and it involved a 6 hour interview process on-site.  I will spare most of those hours but there were two 45-60 minute interviews that stood out.  The first was on 'C' followed by 'Java', neither of which I've coded professionally (or personally for any non-learning period of time).  Keeping current did help me muster my way through the concepts and what not, albeit barely.

This is where I bring it back to my original point for this post.  A couple of years later down the road during a technical interview for a job in a language/environment which does not have the concept of 'interfaces' (as in the C#/Java sense (to name a couple)), I was asked such a question.  I first pointed out that interfaces don't exist in the target environment as it does in C#/Java, and then proceeded to give a crude explanation on how those are used in Java.  The sound on the other end of the interview table was subtle but noticeable; One of confusion as to how someone doesn't use such constructs (or the fact that not all languages/platforms uniformly implement the same exact concepts).

It really comes down to education, in both directions (and I'm not implying academia to be clear).  Engineers should be able to keep their familiarity with other languages/platforms current enough to be able to understand those difference between both their local toolsets and those of everyone else (to a reasonable degree).  Just because I don't code in Scala professionally doesn't mean that I shouldn't read articles about Scala's 'traits', or that I should ignore a different write-up on Groovy on Grails despite not using Groovy or Grails.

This also means that those engineers of the Microsoft stack should at least familiarise themselves with what Django is, a bit of Rails, maybe some PHP and Perl, a little bit of Lua and Lisp/Clojure/Scheme, etc.  In a former situation I ended up taking the development lead in a Microsoft heavy envioronment writing Classic ASP for the first (and preferably last) time, so I've practiced that which I preach.  Knowing some of the pieces that differentiate the languages also give insight into work and processes that may be missing from our own stack(s).  Our corpus of knowledge collectively shouldn't have such extreme gaps from discipline to discipline because it as a whole divides us from possibly creating the next big thing as well as (maybe more importantly so) fulfilling our individual potentials as developers/engineers/creators.

So take this as an opportunity to visit that neighboring x/y/z technology users group, maybe even a smaller convention/conference to get uncomfortable yet ultimately expand one's own horizon and knowledge-base.  Only good things can come of this.  Continuous improvement doesn't solely refer to processes and applications but people as well.

31 October, 2007

The Importance of Developers' Social Circles

     I just received a phone call this evening from Philip F., a previous quasi-co-worker (an employee at a software shop for whom I used to contract) and we took some time to catch up on how things have been in both of our personal/professional worlds.  I took the time to explain that I was no longer working as an employee for a New Jersey based internet hosting provider, and he informed me that he was now teaching some of the same classes on web based coder that he himself had just completed as a student.  Just for the record, he's been coding for almost two decades, it was more of a catchup on certain technologies with which he didn't focus on professionally.
     This eventually led into the topic of getting plans together for grabbing dinner together, as our previous plans to do so were disrupted at the last minute and we'd not had the opportunity to reschedule.  We're going to do so this time and it made me think of how important it is for developer/engineers and architects to spend time face to face, even over something as ubiquitous as dinner.   We need this kind of camaraderie as a means of acquiring new information that while not directly affecting each of us in the same manner, it does provide us expanded horizons.  
     Getting together over some nice Indian, Thai or Moroccan food while chatting away aimless on topics as innocuous petty work incidents to full blown coding feats is a means by which we as a community of software professionals bond.  It is this circle of connections which proves to be the most rewarding in terms of contacts for future work, but more so importantly, for our own social well being, knowing that others share some of the same pains prevalent in the coding environment through which we endure to produce wonderful products.  
     This reminds me of many, *many* years back when from 1987 through 1996 I owned and operated an electronic bulletin board system (BBS) called Somerton Telecomm International BBS (also known as Somerton Telecomm as well as Somerton BBS).  We had 6,000+ verified users in 39 countries and 42 US states, 12 phone lines and a very active user base, but ultimately it was the weekly dining get-togethers at 01:00 in the morning at locale eating establishments (the great Northeastern United States collections of diners as it were) to munch on food whilst blabbering away, in person to others on various topics of interest to all those involved.  We would spend hours, sometimes longer just go off verbally on anything and everything online related or otherwise.  
     It is exactly this kind of face to face interaction that helps to grown the world view of a given coder, as well as assist in the act of interacting with others in a more relaxed environment.  So I suggest to everyone out there, contact previous coders, architects and/or engineers with whom you've worked and arrange to get together over a glass of wine, or a formal meal, and simply enjoy the company of a peer with whom you can speak openly, about so many varied topics.  I'm sure that there are more than a few topics via which you can converse happily. 
     Don't wait, take action today, your mental stability will thank you.

12 August, 2007

Future Aspirations.

I recently had dinner with a previous pseudo-co-worker from my previous contract to catch up on things since parting ways.  I say "pseudo-co-worker" because ultimately when one is a contractor, he/she has no co-workers with only the exception of other contractors on the same project for which they were contracted.  He works for a software production firm primarily in Java, and that little tidbit of information started me thinking.  What I have wanted for all of these years in the profession was to work for a software house.  


I know that some of the open source crowd are going to say "why not contribute to new and/or existing open source project?" to which I simply point out that is isn't the same.  I have written and distributed code under both the artistic license as well as the BSD license, but ultimately it isn't solely about the code, it is about the environment.  Right now, I work in an environment in which there is really one person with whom I can speak and joke regarding code and geekdom in general, and I enjoy that.  I do know however, that much like my previous work associate, I want the whole environment, surrounded by other coders of varying capabilities and disciplines.  


I'm sure some might imply that I have a sort of fantasy view of these environments, but I beg to differ based upon the opinions of others that I know personally.  There is a certain camaraderie in highly skilled engineering/creative homogeneous work place environments which just isn't found elsewhere.  If anyone reading this has ever had the opportunity to read any blogs from the original coding group at Netscape or Apple, you'll know full well as to what I'm referring.


I know full well that there are high stress time periods at those companies and that more so those environments are more conducive to non-family-life encumbered employees, but there are definitely exceptions as such.  


Either way, back to my friend.  I think he pointed out something to me that I feel would me help with my, dare I say, professional environmental depression, that being -- attending programming/tech conferences.  Back in 2000, I attended Linux World in New York at the Jacob Javits Center, and then again in 2001.  It was a blast, by and far.  I do have to say that 2000 was a much better event than 2001 not only because of the IBM sponsored rave, BattleBots, and free (as-in "beer") bar, but because of the people there.  It seemed to go quite a bit more corporate in one single year.  I met many interesting people during those conventions, and even received several job offerings as well, though I didn't take any, as much as I should've since a few were at software houses.   Either way, I've lost my focus of this post, but I can say that I've made it a personal resolution to start heading to more developer related cons, now the questions are, which ones?  PyConJavaOneLUG Radio Live (US or UK)?   I guess time will tell.