There is no spoon

I have reached the conclusion that I am not happy with the average quality of my posts. There are some which I like, but there are many which feel incomplete, for which more polishing time would have been needed. (Feel free to contradict me here ;-)

Therefore I am setting myself a two weeks deadline for improving my blogging. Changes will happen in my blog during this time, but I won't add new posts as often as until now.

I want to have at the end of the two weeks the following things:

• Old posts that are good, in my view, will be refined and republished (version 2)
  
• A way of working that would allow me to keep my blog quality consistent
  

For the second objective, I expect a few changes to happen, namely I expect to post less often and to do more research and polishing before publishing.

I don't really think that metablogging is interesting to readers, but since my main activity in the following weeks will be to improve my blog, I will probably post about it.

Well, that's it; talk to you soon, and hopefully, better!

I have recently stressed the importance of having a team formed from very good developers in order to obtain software quality. I received interesting feedback regarding this statement, including one issue related to the ego of programmers.

The problem goes like this: you gather your best developers and ask them to work on a project. Instead of producing much more than the average programmers, they fight over design, libraries and principles.

I believe that there are a few key problems when this happens. First of all, design by committee has proved to be an anti-pattern. Second of all, because software development is about ideas, all projects should start with prototype implementations that are refined during the project's consequent phases. Third of all, there's the Ego Problem.

It is easy to see that developers often have an oversized Ego. That aspect can be very good or very bad for a project.

Let's take for example Linus Torvalds. Whenever he talks in public, he says "I'm always right, you're wrong. If I don't like what you say, I may say you're ugly and stupid". That's certainly an oversized ego.
On the other hand, nobody can say that Linux is not a succesful project. More than that, Linux is organized in such a way that Linus Torvalds doesn't control all its phases. And there's even more to the story: Linux might not have been so succesful if Linus Torvalds had a smaller ego.

I've also met the other type of developer. The one who thinks that knows everything, the one that doesn't agree with older and smarter people from the industry. The one who thinks his ideas are very bright when they actually are really bad mistakes. The one that tries to impose his solutions to everybody else.
I guess that this phenomenon takes place in Romania because the IT industry doesn't have tradition, doesn't have values, and it's not settled yet (actually, like the whole society). People still try to be original when they should just listen to the voice of the experience.

But what is different between Linus Torvalds and John Developer My-Solution-Is-Always-The-Best?
You can probably name a lot of differences. Knowledge and understanding are a few of them.

I believe that the main factor differentiating a Good Ego from a Bad Ego is the intellectual honesty.

If you read what Linus Torvalds says, you will see that he has no problem to point out his mistakes and his limitations. That's normal, because he works in an open environment, where all mistakes are noticed. If he doesn't talk about them, the others will.
At the other end of the spectrum, John Know-It-All will never accept he's mistaken, even if you prove it with all the resources you can. He will find out all sorts of ways to prove them wrong: "Those people don't do what we do", "This is theory", "I haven't seen this work" etc.

So there's one point to look for:

A person with a Good Ego is his/her first critic.

Intellectual honesty also includes the willingness to learn. Not only the technology you work with, but everything related to software development. Yes, that's hard, takes a lot of time and it's frustrating because you always find out you made mistakes. But software development is hard.

Continuous learning is the best way to transform a Bad Ego into a Good Ego.

My experience includes many moments of enlightment and of realization of my mistakes. I've come to understand that mistakes are part of life and that we should take maximum advantage from them. Understanding our mistakes and finding ways to correct them is how we evolve intellectually. During this process, a Bad Ego is transformed into a Good Ego.

The answer? Look for people who are intellectualy honest. This is an absolute requirement for what I call "good programmer".

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Personal advertisement: I am PassionIT and help teams that develop high quality software. I train, I help improving and I work hands-on, depending on the needs. Contact me if you need help.
Alexandru Bolboaca-Diaconu

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Managers and marketeers have a thing with names; they have to translate everything into something easy to digest and that sounds nice.

I've been called during my career names like: C++ developer, .Net developer, .Net software architect. During my first years in the industry, it seemed OK. Now I know better.

It's true that I've worked mainly with Microsoft tools: Visual C++ 5.0, 6.0 and Visual Studio 2003, 2005. It's true that I've used Microsoft libraries: MFC, ATL. But that's only the surface.

I believe that what I did is more important than what language I used. Let's see a short list:

• I designed and implemented (with the help of my mentor) a custom database engine optimized for read only operations
  
• I improved the performance for a number of applications
  
• I worked on a number of tasks related to networking (sockets and stuff)
  
• I designed and implemented a resource locking subsystem in a distributed application
  
• Now I'm designing and implementing a Domain Specific Language
  

While knowing a programming language is necessary for all the above tasks, it's not enough.

On the other hand, I have evolved much besides the Microsoft world. I am currently using Linux at home, and loving it. I have finally understood functional programming only a couple of years ago, although I had passed an exam on this topic in college. I have understood that this whole discussion of patterns, procedures and other buzz words is futile; it's only programming. I have read about and used, within the available time, languages like Python, Ruby, Haskell, Perl and others. (In fact, even when working on Windows, I have a Cygwin instance open at all times so that when I need something I can quickly go in Python). Oh, and I know C, C++, Java, Javascript and C#.

For me the holly wars between Java and C# or any other two languages is just a pointless waste of time. If I think a language does a better job for what I need, I'm using it. If I think I need a new language, I'm designing and implementing it.

Finally, everything comes down to a few simple rules:

Be responsible
Know what you're doing
Take into account the advantages and the disadvantages
Use the appropriate tools
Solve the problem


So please, don't call me names; I'm a software developer, sometimes a software designer.

Update: Martin Fowler talks in his last bliki post about the different languages available for the Java platform. It seems we're on the same page about multilanguage projects...

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Personal advertisement: I am PassionIT and help teams that develop high quality software. I train, I help improving and I work hands-on, depending on the needs. Contact me if you need help.
Alexandru Bolboaca-Diaconu

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I think that the developer's soft skills are not stressed enough. There's no curriculum, lecture, book, blog or journal that talks about soft skills necessary for effective software development.

The issues are of course mentioned. Frederick Brooks in "The mythical man month" and Steve McConnel in "Code Complete" talk about communication, about understanding the customers and so on. That's not enough, though.

The two things that helped enormously my career until now were soft skills: Foreign Languages (English and especially French) and Empathy. Of course, the hard skills are important, but that's covered pretty well in the litterature.

My knowledge of French allowed me to work with French speaking customers, thus enlarging my experience and my demand. The empathy allowed me to understand my customers, to understand their needs, to minimize the communication time and to deliver what they requested. An interesting fact is that I've educated my empathy by studying people during the college years, and today I congratulate myself for that.

So here it is, another remark regarding the human factor in software development:

Empathy is largely underestimated as one of the main factors that contribute to the success of a software project.

If you can understand your customer, your co-workers and the human nature, the only obstacle between you and a succesful software project is taking the right technical decisions. And who takes them? Again, the team members. Wouldn't it help if they could communicate effectively with each other? You bet.

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Personal advertisement: I am PassionIT and help teams that develop high quality software. I train, I help improving and I work hands-on, depending on the needs. Contact me if you need help.
Alexandru Bolboaca-Diaconu

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I believe hobbies are very important for any human being, and I'm not excluding programmers from this category. I believe than any person should know what he/she likes to do besides work. This is the key to a balanced lifestyle, and, maybe even more important, to personal improvement.

Personally, I like to read, travel and cook. I visited most countries in the Western Europe during hollidays, and I'm ready for more. I fancy, for example, a trip to the Inca remnants from the Andes; it is a little bit problematic because it's expensive and because I need to get in shape, but I'm willing to make an effort. I have mixed feelings about the U.S.; I'd like to see the Grand Canyon, but I'm not sure if cities like New York or Los Angeles are worth visiting, since I'm not that much into modern architecture. Until then, I will certainly go to Tuscany and to Barcelona and surroundings. Honestly, I can barely wait.

I already discussed about my passion for reading. If interested, take a look at my Shelfari bookshelf.

I'm cooking quite often, usually Romanian food (Sour Soups, Polenta etc.) or common plates, like grills (always marinated), skewers and other types of meat plates. I'm also cooking breakfast in the week-ends, meaning omelettes and sometimes pancakes.
I like many things about cooking. First of all, it's a relaxing activity; I can listen to music, talk to my wife and even play while I prepare something. Second, it's a social activity, when we have "kitchen guests". It also allows me to explore the world without going too far; for example, today at lunch I cooked for the first time a Chinese recipe, Stir Fried Beef with Three Vegetables. On other occasions I've tried fried rice (Asian recipe) or Basmati rice with safran. More than that, I learned many words in English and French, in order to understand the recipes. True, I'm still unsure sometimes, but that's part of the adventure.

I feel fine at home, and forget about my work. I think that's a good thing, because every day I come back with batteries reloaded. My hobbies have a lot to do with this.

Do you have any hobbies?