Eden Development Staff Notes

Many – maybe all – of the ideas and practices being paraded under the banner of “Software Craftsmanship” are far from new. Skill, knowledge, expertise, pride in work are fundamentals of any creative endeavour: their re-packaging, and associated manifestos, positioning, posturing and advocacy, is building walls between developers, organisations and customers that we’ve been trying to break down for the last two decades. This talk will explore the contrarian position that craftsmanship is not enough, and that Software Craftsmanship is at best a distraction, at worst a danger.

The talk was mentioned by Jason Gorman on the Software Craftsmanship Google Group and had some ripple effect in the mailing list.

Personally I am not adverse to this kind of reactions. We have seen the same type of reactions in the early XP mailing list, heard the same comments about Agile Software Development till it all became mainstream. It is normal that some people feel the way they feel when it comes to changes.

One thing that struck me though is the sensation that the people who believe in Software as a Craft, also known Software Craftsmanship, are building walls around them.

What strikes me here is that the people that regard themselves as Software Craftsmen, or let me rephrase this, the Software Craftsmen I know, are very helpful and always try to help others, sharing coding exercisesand share their experiences.

Heck some of the companies even go through the hardships of making Apprenticeship Programs in order to mentor their staff. Something that is a major investment for any company in time and money.

In this past year I have seen the communication between developers multiply, each trying to help one another with ideas, pointers (not the C type), sharing code, and even agreeing to mentor.

Software Craftsmanship is definitely not about building walls, rather we knock the walls that are here at the moment to build bridges that bring us closer together.

Enrique

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Micah Martin in the Wandering Book

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

This morning I woke up with a mail from Micah telling me that he had uploaded the pages he wrote in The Wandering Book. I checked the site and I was totally amazed by what I saw.

Micah's Wandering Book Entry

As you can see yourself he used a wonderful font for writing his entry, but above all he challenges the reader with a thought…

Can there exist Master Craftsman who knows only software?

I leave the answer to yourself, but I can only agree with him.

Enrique

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My new Apprentices

Friday, November 27th, 2009

Yesterday finally both of my new apprentices have accepted the role as an Apprentice at Eden Development.

I am very excited to be able to guide them on their long road to mastery. During the course of their apprenticeship I will be posting my thoughts on their progress, the tasks I have assigned to them and in general things related to their apprenticeship. Once their respective blogs are up and running (we are setting a space for that at the Eden Development web site) I will also add the links in here so that you can follow it up in context.

As I mentioned on twitter before; meet my apprentices, Aimee Daniells and Spencer Turner. Both are very passionate about building software and bring a unique set of skills to our workshop.

On Wednesday I gave them their first task:

I want you to write a wiki server in the Ruby language test first (i.e. TDD done right) using only the standard Ruby library but without using any available gem or testing framework (that includes the unit testing framework that ships with the Ruby language).

Both of them (separately) came to the conclusion that they would have to develop their own test framework. But…

Apprentice: How do I develop the testing framework without using a testing framework?
Mentor: Code just as much of the testing framework that will allow you to start testing it

More to it soon…

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Eden Development

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

As some of you might know already my journey has taken me now to Eden Development a software craftsmanship workshop in the heart of Winchester.

Eden Development is lead by Chris Parsons, a very passionate craftsman whom I really appreciate, not only as a craftsman but as a friend as well.

This does not mean that NexWerk as such does not exist anymore; NexWerk is still my place where I will be muse about the craft, but mainly things about The Wandering Book and other software craftsmanship related things that are not necessarily in direct connection with Eden Development.

We are currently settling into our new workshop and we are all very excited about that. You will be able to read about it on the Eden Development web site.

I am also taking on new apprentices at Eden, which is a very exciting new challenge. You will be able to read their blogs about their apprenticeship and any other related things in the Eden Development website soon (you’ll have to be patient as we are overhauling it at the moment).

Another thing that has been going on this weeks (months I could say already) is the setup of Katacast, a place where craftsmen will share katas with a broader audience. If you have any kata that you would like to share don’t hesitate to communicate either to Corey Haines or to myself.

The Wandering Book is still on the road, and as far as I can pinpoint it on its way to Micah Martin. I hope it reaches there soon so that we all can enjoy the new pages he will add to it with his words of wisdom.

I hope to be able to post more often, so watch this space!

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Michael Norton (doc) on the wandering book

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

Michael Norton (doc) has written a very inspiring and at the same time humbling blog post about his experience with the wandering book.

It is nice to see how the wandering book evolves with the insights and teachings of fellow craftsmen who take time to reflect and write into it, sharing their insights with everyone who wants to read.

I can’t wait to see his addition to the book (which I hope will happen soon), I am sure it will be great!

Thank you again to everyone in our community for sharing the experiences in this, our book.

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Dave Hoover in the wandering book

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

A new entry in the wandering book has been sighted, this time from Dave Hoover!

I particularly liked his post because he takes Jason Gorman’s and Corey Haines’s entries creating a conversation out of them putting his own ideas into it.

This entry actually made me think about our craft and how it is been practiced, even in our surroundings.

Software Craftsmanship is not only about coding alone; coding is the baseline of it. If we do craft code, we obviously have to practice coding over and over, pushing the limits and learn.

The main difference I see with other communities is that we, the software craftsmanship community, try to have close contact with each other, trying to help in the long road we have chosen to walk. This is a very important factor about our community and how we interact with each other, we are colleagues, we are friends.

Some people though don’t think that way, and regard coding as the only way. The problem of that approach is that we will go back in time again to what I always called the Neanderthal Developer. This kind of developer is a very high profile developer (most of them are), but gives a damn about any community and will only be part of it as long as he can learn for himself something. These are the guys that prefer to code alone in their own cubicle ghetto and think that the projects they are working on are good as long as the code alone is good.

Crafting code is just the baseline of software craftsmanship, a very important one, I agree, but it is just the base on which the rest of what software craftsmanship means rests on. Just take a look at the manifesto and you will realise that only the first value is actually talking about code!

If our community does not focus on the rest of the values that we all signed on, we are not being any better than anyone else; maybe we just care more about the code, but that is a very sad proposition.

Steadily adding value, a community of professionals and productive partnerships all happen outside the code arena, and it is our responsibility, as software craftsmen, to lead by example, foster communication and share.

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SCNA

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Software Craftsmanship North America On Wednesday the 26th of August there is going to be again a conference on Software Craftsmanship, this time in Chicago.

When I first heard about the conference (Paul Pagel and Dave Hoover told me about it) I was very excited and registered immediately (in fact I was the first person to test if the registration process worked as expected ). My excitement would soon though turn into sadness as I realized that I would not be able to make it to the conference due to other commitments.

I would have loved to come to the conference and meet my fellow craftsmen and see the masters talking about the craft, but I am afraid that this year there will be no representation from NexWerk at SCNA. I will have to wait for the accounts from fellow craftsman Ade Oshineye and my flat mate Nuno Marques, to tell me the details from the conference once they are back in London. Obviously I will poke holes into my fellow craftsmen abroad for them to tell me details of the conference too.

On a lighter note I think the wandering book is currently in the chicago area, so it might be possible that whoever has it in his hands brings it to the conference and let’s people like Unclebob or even Richard Sennett write into the book to add some incredible accounts to it!

I wish I could have joined you guys there… maybe next year

Wishing all the best to the organizers (Obtiva and 8th Light) for a great success!

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