The Craft Bash!

The next Bash will take place on Friday 24th July at 12 noon (BST) and will be on the ever-contentious topic of ‘Software Development as a Craft’.

We will be discussing whether coding could (or should) ever become a purely mundane and predictable task. Will there always be a role for creative knowledge workers, dreaming up inspired problems to novel challenges? Or will coding become an austere, deterministic process where any two developers should always converge on the same solution to a given problem?

Three speakers will offer three different perspectives on the essence of craft, including the inimitable Kevlin Henney delivering the keynote, and local legends Tim Cooke (no, not that one) and Garth Gilmour (yes, that one).

This is a virtual event. There is no limit on the number of attendees, so feel to share and distribute on the socials. Link for meeting https://youtu.be/ULsxi3DMEhY

Keynote: Kevlin Henney(@KevlinHenney)

The Passions of Programming

"We're looking for passionate programmers!" says the job ad. For a love-in or a development role? Passion is used to evoke single-mindedness, drive and intensity, but it also has many other meanings, surely not all of which can be intended. Love aside, passion also spills over into irrationality, aggression — e.g., crimes of passion — and unconditional and unquestioning pursuit of ideas. Our acceptance of this word and this quality should be partial and conditional. But there is more than one kind of passion, and when raw passion is tempered with compassion and dispassion we start to see a more balanced way of development.

Craft draws on both creativity and rationality, on both experience and experimentation, on both focus and connection, on both individual skill and group intelligence. The dry language of productivity needs to admit the possibility of enjoyment; the culture of burn-out needs to give way to humanity and empathy. Let's explore the many passions of programming.

Tim Cooke (@timdrivendev)

Curate your Craft

Software Engineers strive to improve their skills, increase their knowledge, and become better developers. However the scope of the profession is so broad, diverse, and ever expanding that it’s practically impossible to know it all. So if ‘learn all the things’ is out, then what?

One thing an engineer can do is expand and refine their ‘mental productivity tools’ - cognitive disciplines that help make the best use of whatever prep time is available. These disciplines include learning to discern between valuable emerging frameworks and ‘shiny things’, continually focusing on fundamentals rather than hipster trends, and ensuring that practise is mindful and focused.

This talk will offer some guidance on how to find and nurture these mental tools, so that your development career can stretch beyond a particular trend, framework or pattern. The goal is that you will have the core skills to adapt to new codebases and continue to deliver quality software.

Garth Gilmour (@GarthGilmour)

Are Software Engineers Professionals?

Central to discussions of Software Craft is the issue of whether development is a profession in its own right. Typically this descends into pedantry and quibbling over definitions. But a useful thought experiment is to consider whether other professions would recognise developers as being fit to judge their ranks. Sadly the response is usually 'No'.

This talk will elaborate on what makes an occupation a profession outside of IT, and how much work the IT industry needs to do before it can measure up. We won't pre-judge whether making development a profession is good or practical, but weigh up the pros and cons as we go. Hopefully by the end of the talk you will be very angry and inspired to ask difficult questions.