Purple Question

I just finished Purple Cow. In the book, Seth Godin asks one very intelligent question a number of different ways.

What are you doing to create a remarkable experience for the person who will consume your product?

The foundation Godin uses to answer this question is a mixture of anecdotal evidence and rational thought. The choice of case studies and source material makes the answers compelling narratively but prone to criticism from a scientific standpoint, similar to the work of Malcolm Gladwell. I do feel, however, that the question is an interesting litmus test for the work that I do as an application developer. It works in interviews, in code reviews, in strategy meetings, everywhere. It's rare that a single question can cut to the chase like that and cross domains with ease. Pretty awesome.

Coders in Transit

Yesterday I was in transit for twelve hours door to door. While I wasn't sleeping or on conference calls regarding secure video for the web, I read three chapters of Coders at Work.

There is a fascinating and nuanced history to the development of software engineering and it's a shame that so little of the field is dedicated to capturing it in a permanent form. It's fortunate that Peter Seibel had the foresight to interview the people directly involved in the making of that history and disseminate their thoughts to the rest of us.

Read it. It's awesome.

You put your disease in me. It helps me. It makes me strong.

I've heard several people talk about test infection over the past two years. I am going on the record right now. I don't think that having tests means that the code base itself is good. I do wish, however, that there were tests for the code base that I am troubleshooting right now.

I understand that there were operational concerns with providing the ability for full testing. I understand that I bowed to those concerns. I now wish that I hadn't. It forces development into a reactive rather than a proactive stance when it comes to addressing live errors. And that just sucks. Code needs innoculation against the dangers of the wild. Hasn't Dorothy Vallens taught me anything? Argh.