Why I still read technical books

[This was originally posted at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/why_i_still_read_technical_books.htm]

Occasionally I hear a respected developer make the case against books - "Books are dead, use other online resources instead." I acknowledge that technical books do have several limitations:

• They can be very linear, lacking the web's hyperlinks. While books can have cross references, but it's just not the same.

• Books are possibly outdated - books take an average of 1-2 years to get published. Especially with technical books, where the rush is to be first and "catch the wave", books on newer topics may be inaccurate because they were written using the beta of the technology.

• Books can contain information overload - you don't need every chapter in an ASP.Net book to get started (most developers never touch ASP.Net globalization).

• As a book is ultimately printed paper, you can't get a dynamic interaction from a book - i.e. stepping through a source code demo or seeing an animating demo.

• Books physically take up space, and can sometimes be very heavy, such as when you're a consultant in the airport and you need to pack everything into a single carry-on.

• Books can only be in one place at a time - so it can cause problems when you need it at home, but left it at the office.

• This is lame - but sometimes you're on a project where management discourages reading technical books during office hours ("we don't want the client thinking you don't already know what you're doing, read up on that stuff at home") - however the same manager is totally comfortable with you browsing online technical websites.

However, I think everything considered, there is definitely a time and place to use books as a learning resource. Some of these weaknesses can be turned into a book's greatest strengths:

• Books, usually a 200-600 page journey through a dozen chapters, are often more thorough than online tutorials or blog posts. They cover more topics, and show the bigger picture. This gives you a more proactive approach to the topic, as well as inevitably makes you more confident about that topic.

• Books are great for breaking the ice of a new technology because they are a step-by-step journey. You're not scrambling between misc blog posts or tutorials.

• Especially for general topics (basic Xml, Html, C#, SQL, JS), where the entry-level knowledge is pretty stable, a books provides a good introduction and guide.

• Because books are physical hardcopies, they're great when you just want to get away from staring at a laptop screen. Whether it's in an airplane (where practically there's not enough room to pull out a laptop), stepping outside, or even just taking advantage of 5 free minutes (good for reading a page, but barely enough time to even start up a laptop).

• For some personality types, books provide a physical trophy: "wow, look at all those books that I've read through."

Note that books are not intended to be used as your only resource, but rather as one part of a comprehensive learning strategy. Even most tech books today are filled with online links to demos, tools, reference guides, and community groups. I benefit a lot from reading books; I think they're a great tool in one's "learning arsenal".

 

LCNUG presentation on Silverlight

[This was originally posted at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/lcnug_presentation_on_silverlight.htm]

Yesterday I had the opportunity to present at the LCNUG about Silverlight. It was our third meeting and we had about a dozen people. Given the deep talent, it was very humbling. With a small group of talented people, the presentation became more of a back-and-forth discussion, which is great.

 

You can download a copy of the PPT presentation here: silverlightppt.zip. (I tried using Cliff Atkinson's ideas from Beyond Bullet Points.)

 

Here was the abstract:

Silverlight is a new Microsoft technology to radically enhance the UI experience. Silverlight provides several huge benefits, like a vector-graphics API, programming in a compiled .Net language (like C# or VB), a rich object model, and finally solving the cross-browser problem. We will provide a general overview of Silverlight, with an emphasis on common gotchas and where to learn more.

This is the second time I've been able to present at a user group - previously I discussed MSBuild as an automation language.

Word choice is important

[This was originally posted at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/word_choice_is_important.htm]

Communication is important, we often use words to communicate, therefore our word choice is important too. Even slight variations in word choice can have very different meanings and connotations. Here are some examples. I'd be curious to hear what examples you've come across in your experience.

 

Wording 1	Wording 2 (More clear)	What's the difference?
I'll get that done by the morning	This job will take 5 hours.	The first implies that you're working all night on it, the second gives you flexibility.
He stepped down from management to be a developer again.	He transitioned from manager to developer.	The first implies that managers are more "important" than developers, which is not always the case. The good companies provide a technical track for senior technical folk, such that transitioning from manager to developer could be a lateral shift, not a demotion.
I've made changes	I've made improvements	Are the changes good or bad?
(talking to a manger) I need this new tool	We need this new tool	Emphasizes that it's not you who needs a "favor" (i.e. a new tool), but rather for the benefit of the team.
This project requires a senior developer	This project requires a skilled developer	The project really needs skill, which doesn't necessarily mean "the developer with the most years of experience."

 

I realize it's just words, but the meanings behind those words are important.

 

[UPDATE]: I am absolutely not saying that one should spin, deceive, or try manipulating people with word choice. No one wants someone else trying to manipulate them with words. The goal is to use clear word choice that clarifies real intention, not use "sneaky" words to trick others or hide important details.

Book: Code Leader

[This was originally posted at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/book_code_leader.htm]

I'm always fascinated by the difference between average developers, and good developers. Therefore any book that helps explain how to go "to the next level" is going to capture my interest. Patrick Cauldwell's Code Leader: Using People, Tools, and Processes to Build Successful Software does. With a forward by Scott Hanselman, the book lives up to the hype. Patrick sees the big picture, and leverages his experience to explain a dozen concepts used by good developers - the ones who other developers look to as leaders (hence the title). I'm paraphrasing his chapter titles:

1. Buying vs. Building
2. Test-Driven Development
   1. "writing fewer lines of code should never be considered a design goal."  (13)
3. Continuous Integration
   1. "and developer time is always more expensive than hardware" (25)
   2. He emphasizes that while many projects are tempted to offload their build scripts to a junior dev (to free up the senior devs to do something "important"), it's really in the projects best interest to have your best talent create the build process as that immeasurably benefits every aspect of the project.
   3. "Nobody can check in changes at 5:00 p.m. on Friday before going on vacation." (39)
4. When is it done?
   1. "Nothing paralyzes a team faster than trying to reach consensus on every design point." (45)
5. Testing
   1. "Testing is perceived as less 'fun' than writing 'real' code." (57)
   2. "A clean build server is a happy build server." (89)
   3. "One of the most important parts of your strategy should be to demonstrate progress as early as possible." (97)
6. Source Control
   1. I love this: about source control, he mentioned that some are free - "(free as in puppy, not free as in beer)" (112)
7. Static Analysis
   1. He mentions several tools: NDepend, FxCop, Simian
8. Contracts and Interfaces
9. How to limit dependencies - an emphasis on Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control
10. Model-View-Presenter (MVP)
11. and more...

Overall, a very good book. It's filled with tools and practical examples. I think that every dev lead should be familiar with the topics that he discusses.

The problem with "would you bet your job on that?"

[This was originally posted at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/the_problem_with_would_you_bet_your_job_on_that.htm]

Here's a story:

Bob the developer is plugging away on his feature. He's made a detailed estimate. Bob's manager, Monty, asks for the estimate. "I expect 4 weeks," Bob answers, explaining the reasons for the proposed schedule. Bob is a developer, he just wants to dutifully get the project done, and he knows that the boss wants it done yesterday.

Monty is one of those managers who can squeeze the most from his employees, so he pushes back (half jokingly) with "Really, are you sure? Would you bet your job on that?"

Visibly flustered, Bob squirms in his seat, "Um, ah, I'm not fully sure, I can recheck things..."

"Aha," Monty quietly assures himself, "No developer is going to pull a shoddy estimate past me!"

As everyone leaves, Monty feels puffed up, and Bob feels like he's not worth two cents.

I've actually seen this sort of nonsense happen before (thankfully never at Paylocity). Sure, occasionally there are do-or-die decisions where the company goes under if the wrong action is taken. But the vast majority of the time, it's a hot-shot manager thinking that they're going to show "those developers" who really sees the big picture. After all, the manager is merely asking for a proper estimate (or feature, or technical component, or bug fix, etc...).

 

The problem with this managerial approach is that it's not a fair wager. The developer essentially puts up $100,000 (their job, which may include benefits and multiple year's worth of work), whereas the manager only puts up a nickel. Even if the developer is incredibly confident, it's still not worth the bet.

 

I'm sure somewhere out there, there is a perfect comeback. The best I can think of is (1) leaving that project (with a manager like that, the project is probably doomed anyway), or (2) calling out the manager and remaining confident "No, I'm not betting my job, I'm giving you a detailed estimate. Do you think there's an error in the estimate, or would you like to shrink the feature scope?" That puts the focus back on objective facts, pulls you back to the same side (you're both working together to get the project done), shows the manager that you're above silly games, and avoids an ego match.

Technical things that devs do besides coding

[This was originally posted at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/technical_things_that_devs_do_besides_coding.htm]

As Paul Glen pointed out in his good book Leading Geeks, while many jobs are based on visible action (i.e. a mechanic on an assembly line), software engineering is largely based on thinking - which is not a visible action. Therefore different rules apply. For example, a software engineer could be working hard, plowing through a complex design in their mind, but it may look like they're just staring off into space. The problem is when those software engineers have non-technical managers who don't understand this, and instead expect their developers, like any other type of good employee, to constantly be "working", by which the manager means "moving", by which they ultimately mean "typing keystrokes for new, production features".

 

But this is silly. Your best developers are rarely your fastest type-writers. The problem is that there are so many value-added tasks beyond just typing keystrokes:

• Learning

  • Researching new technologies and techniques

  • Learning a tool or DSL that helps you write better code in the future

  • Mentoring others

• People and Communication

  • Holding meetings

  • Documenting (like updating the team wiki)

• Non-production coding

  • Writing unit tests

  • Refactoring

  • Fixing bugs

  • Making reusable utilities and architectural components

Point is that an honest, value-adding developer could sometimes spend the whole day barely touching "new feature" code, yet still contribute tons of value to the project. My concern is that many developers seem apologetic for this, almost like "Gee boss, sorry, I had a slow day today, I'll work extra hard tomorrow to make up for it" You didn't have a slow day, you were just plowing through the unappreciated, yet necessary part of the project. It's much like building the car engine - you don't directly see the engine, but the car won't run without it. Just like it's a "first class" task for a mechanic to fix the car's engine, it's also a first class task for developers to do things besides typing keystrokes for immediately visible features.

The need and benefit of mentoring

[This was originally posted at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/the_need_and_benefit_of_mentoring.htm]

Most software applications today are just too big for a single person to handle, therefore projects are built by teams of people. Often these teams have junior members, and therefore it's essential to help these junior members learn and grow - i.e. they need to be mentored. Now sometimes it's an "emergency project", and there simply isn't time to mentor someone, but this is a dead-end approach. The successful, on-going projects are constantly mentoring the junior guys so that they have an every-growing pool of capable developers.

 

The beauty is that if you've got an eager dev, and you spend a few hours training them on a task or technique, then they can handle that technique going forward. This frees you up from that type of task, and lets you focus on higher level problems. In one sense, if you're to "move up", you need to ensure that the current class of problems you have are handled. You have a few options here:

1. Work lots of overtime, so that you're handling both your old problems, and the new one's you'll encounter at the new position. This approach isn't sustainable.

2. Make those problems go away, usually by solving them properly and simplifying the maintenance with automation. This is a good temporary solution, but ultimately the automation breaks, or the process itself needs to be modified, and then you get blindsided at the most inconvenient time.

3. Mentor someone else to take over your automated process. This is ideal. It involved other people on the team, and encourages that newly-mentored developer to understand and improve the process you original set in motion.

I personally find a good way to mentor people (and be mentored myself) is to emphasize the skills that they like and are practical to them, initially work with them one on one, then let them toy around with it on their own, then connect them with another person who can answer questions (your "backup"), while always keeping your door open to questions.

 

I've seen many senior devs, with good intentions, declare that they're "too busy to mentor people right now". Sometimes this is because the company only rewards immediate coded features, as opposed to long-term team growth, and a dev isn't jumping to do what they won't get rewarded for. Other times it is because the dev just doesn't know about mentoring - no one mentored them and they "toughed it out" the "old fashioned way". Still, other times it's because the senior dev is, to put it politely, being short-sited. As the saying goes: "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for life."

 

If you spend 4 hours ("but that's half a day!") mentoring a junior dev on how to fix security hacking issues, or use the new validation framework, and they then do those tasks for the next year, which saves you even 2 hours a week  - you've just been spared 100 hours. So, there are many benefits to mentoring:

• An hour of mentoring could easily give you 20 hours back - now that's a good return.

• There's a great feeling in helping others.

• Perhaps someday that junior dev will learn a technology that's new to you, and they'll return the favor.

• Teaching something to some else truly forces you to understand it yourself.

• It helps build a closer team.

I think because of all this, the best companies will always be actively mentoring each other.