Breathing Data, Competing on Code

Venkatesh Raoribbonfarm.com

vgr@ribbonfarm.com

February 22, 2012

^mostly this

competing on coders

band-aid

people over process

software is eating everything

-- Marc Andreessen

every company is now a software company

-- David Kirkpatrick

most software is crap

Expand Feature Set,

increase entropy

Expand Feature Set,

increase entropy

Version nVersion n Version n+1Version n+1

Refactor, lower entropy, pay off technical debt

Refactor, lower entropy, pay off technical debt

Release!Release!

99%

1%

software is eating everythingcrap

#OccupySoftware!#OccupySoftware!

Software is eating the world and every industry is being dissolved, disaggregated, disrupted and de-engineered in an acid rain downpour of Big Data and Free Agency coming down from CLOUDS that are forming via DATA evaporation from a world that is an ocean of sensors, iPhone and Android apps and untamed social streams of Facebook life, and when the Internet of Things happens and it is all connected up into a single giant software application a Chinese virus will mutate into a self-improving AI and the Internet will become SENTIENT and TAKE OVER ALL THE DRONES the whole pile of crap will collapse under its own weight and KILL US ALL.

and Windows Phone

^

technical debt is growing faster worldwide than it is being paid off

Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. 

-- Brian Kernighan

listen to this talkby Alan Kay immediately

http://tele-task.de/archive/lecture/overview/5819/

Action Item #1

people over process

this principle is not generally wise outside of software engineering

one size does not fit all

enlightened governance with a wise policy of exceptions and customization of processes to specific situations

rational governance with a wise policy of exception management and customization of processes to specific situations

principles of forgiveness

great engineers ask for forgiveness, not permission

principles of forgiveness are about when you forgive

if you get them wrong something far worse than rule-breaking will happen

This is a meaningless bromide if you always forgive or never forgive

Work-to-rule: an industrial action in which employees do no more than the minimum required by the rules of their contract, and follow safety or other regulations to the letter to cause a slowdown rather than to serve their purpose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule

perfect rule following

burndown chartscode commentingforking normsworking code over documentationcommunication normsdflss certificationscode reviewmeeting ritualspatent applicationsopen source policiesspiral development

sprint tempodaily standupstest-driven developmentusability testingstandrdsversion control retrospectivesuser story semanticsstory points trackingrequirementspair programming

who decides when it is okay to break which rules and why?

narrative | archetypes

cultureculture

governancegovernance

what you forgive depends on where you are in the story

Gustav Freytag, 1863

Venkatesh Rao, 2011

good judgment emerges from a rich sense of narrative situation awareness, not formulaic applications of narrative structure theory

narrative | archetypes

what you forgive depends on who you are dealing with

tinker, tailor soldier, sailorrichman, poorman, beggarman, thief

hacker, hustler, coder, adminmoneyman, dataman, uxman, thief

consultant

after software eatseverything

the best guide to software archetypes can be found within software culture itself

Contemporary culture is a two-tiered system, like the Morlocks and the Eloi in H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, except that it's been turned upside down. In The Time Machine the Eloi were an effete upper class, supported by lots of subterranean Morlocks who kept the technological wheels turning. But in our world it's the other way round. The Morlocks are in the minority, and they are running the show, because they understand how everything works.

-- Neal Stephenson, In the Beginning was the Command Line

dwarves seek beauty

don’t force them to do ugly

a good wizard makes you feel in charge

a good wizard-wrangler realizes he is not

ninjas understand your ideas better than you do

defer to their judgment

samurai prize honor and loyalty

never stop fighting for them

elves understand magical realities that are invisible to you

do not disturb

the exceptional nature of software culture arises from the fact that software engineers build their own tools

software culture is guild-like

Action Item #2

read this book immediately

http://tempobook.com

// end flattery and pandering

// begin evil manipulation

data

When art critics get together they talk about form and structure and meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine. 

-Pablo Picasso

the turpentine effect

form and structure and meaning

Action Item #3

read this book immediately

“Thin Simplification”

“Thin Simplification”

the kind of knowledge required in such endeavors is not deductive knowledge from first principles but…mētis…the kind of knowledge that can be acquired only by long practice at similar but not identical tasks

-- James Scott, Seeing Like a State

great programmers form a subculture based on mētis

respect it

but not too much

mētismētis insularityinsularity complacencycomplacency

self-congratulation is not strategy

...organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.

-- Melvin Conway, 1968

structure follows strategy

-- Alfred Chandler, 1962

when software eats everything and every company is a software company strategy follows data

managing mētis means mastering data

breathing data makes better strategybetter strategy makes better structurebetter structure means richer mētisricher mētis means better codebetter code means better companybetter company lets you eat rather than be eaten

http://tele-task.de/archive/lecture/overview/5819/

#3#2

#1