Exploring the human factors that make software engineering so unique, so difficult, so important and all consuming. Learning to work with the systems, not against them.
Human DevOps - Sunday 21st April - Staying Relevant and Respectful
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Is it just me, or is April turning out to be a complete stinker? The rain hasn't stopped, it's cold, and it feels more like October or November than it does at the start of spring. This feeling appears to be pervading work at the moment, too—I sense frustration bubbling under at every turn. We need some warm sunshine and a few days off before heading back to the grind. I have a short trip coming up and a few things to look forward to not least the just-announced Fast Flow Conference in London in September. As you might know, I'm not a big fan of conferences in general. I tend to love the idea more than I enjoy the outcomes. Last year, I spoke at a few, and I planned to speak at a lot more this year but I realised that the thought of speaking gave me a creeping dread. I did the "Would you do it tomorrow?" test on my speaking engagements. In other words, ask yourself if you would do the 'thing' tomorrow and gauge your body's reaction to thought. My stomach did a flip which led me to cancel all the engagements. The only emotion I felt at that decision was relief. On top of that, conferences are difficult to get right. In a white, middle-class, male-dominated industry, if I speak I'm just adding to the problem. We need to champion diversity and inclusion within our industry events in order for our growing communities to stay welcoming, neurologically diverse, and, most importantly, relevant. The cornerstone of humane software development has to be inclusivity, and this should be evident from the daily scrum right up to the conference level. Conferences are important opportunities to test our beliefs. Therefore whether you're attending or speaking, make sure you check out the DEI policies of the event and ensure that your talk is going to contribute to a discussion. One thing I've learned in the last few weeks, months and years is that sometimes it's better to spend a little longer thinking about something before opening your mouth. Have a great Sunday. -- Richard Missing The Social Cues – When The Tools Do The Talking Published on April 20, 2024 Tech people have a superpower. They can communicate without speaking, without being in the same room, or even via email or teams. They can communicate purely through their actions. But this is not telepathy, this is no telekenesis. I’m talking about PRs, infrastructure (as code) and tool configurations. Tools and processes have become silent battlegrounds… Read More »Missing The Social Cues – When The Tools Do The Talking
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The Human Engineer
Exploring the human factors that make software engineering so unique, so difficult, so important and all consuming. Learning to work with the systems, not against them.
Conference season hit Amsterdam last month with the global juggernaut that is Kubecon but I eschewed the noise of that particular enormous techie event and went instead to the writer-friendly event "Stories Unfold" at Amsterdam's OBA theatre. This was a very pleasant evening giving a selection of self-published and traditionally published authors a stage to share the stories behind their books and also highlighted a new compilation of short stories. The audience was very much made up of...
Twenty years ago I was living in Taunton in the South-West of the UK and travelling by car to work in Bournemouth to work for a big, famous American investment bank as a technical consultant. I'd been hired to be part of a helpdesk which was on-call to supply first line support to portfolio managers who were booking trades for their clients. But me being a techie, I was there to bring technical expertise and solutions to a team that was struggling. I aced the assignment. Providing a technical...
January is over. The longest month! I managed to get a break in Chamonix, nominally to do some skiing, but for the most part it was marvelling at the beauty of it all. The world around us. So, I'm in the alps taking a break from the uncertainty of the present and facing my own mortality on the gentlest slopes near Mont Blanc. It's wonderful being up there with friends, I feel very lucky, and I also don't feel any real need to push myself like I would have done in the older days. I went out...