Why Developer Experience Matters at Cloud Expo 2015

This talk will explore why developer experience matters, what makes for a great developer experience and the relationship between developer experience and the broader field of user experience. Software developers are gaining more influence over the purchase decisions of technologies with which they must build on and with which they must integrate. For example, the success of Amazon Web Services, Heroku and MongoDB has been driven primarily by individual software developers choosing to use these tools, rather than the by the decisions of managers or business executives.

Many of today’s products and services include APIs and other points of extension and integration intended to be used by software developers, even if the primary market segment for these products and services is not software developers. Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake once referred to APIs as “Business Development 2.0” and others have more recently begun to use the term “API economy” to refer to the emergence of APIs as a new model of engagement with customers, business partners and others.

This talk is intended to foster a dialogue around what makes for a great developer experience. The speaker will outline his views on the three key components of a great developer experience: self service, composability and hackability. The presentation will include an example of how IBM Cloudant identified an area in need of improved developer experience, developed a new feature to improve the developer experience and then contributed this new feature to the open source Apache CouchDB project.

Transcript

1. Why Developer Experience Matters Cloud Computing Expo Tuesday, June 9, 2015 Bradley Holt, Developer Advocate @BradleyHolt
2. 2 Image Credit: Complexity by Mark Skipper, on Flickr Enterprise Software!
3. 3 Image Credit: wireframe by baldiri, on Flickr Consumer Technology!
4. 4 Image Credit: Polaroid 450 Portrait by overthinkingme, on Flickr
5. 5 Image Credit: The Old Cash Register by Kool Cats Photography, on Flickr The Buyers Are 
 Not The Users!
7. Why This Matters •  Developers are key influencers in purchase decisions •  Developer-focused products •  Infrastructure •  Platforms •  Databases •  The API economy •  Facebook •  Netflix •  Kayak 7 Image Credit: hexbin - hexagon logo repository
8. Components of Developer Experience
9. 9 Image Credit: Untitled by ludovic, on Flickr
10. 10 10 Image Credit: Microservice architecture by Paul Downey, on Flickr
11. 11 Image Credit: Hack by Brian Rowe, on Flickr
12. Self-Service •  Discoverable •  Value add over vendor lock-in •  Speed of procurement 12
13. Composable •  Unix philosophy •  Open integration •  Don't require full platform usage 13
14. Hackable •  Encourage the unexpected •  Reward innovative use •  Batteries included, but removable 14
15. Improving the Developer Experience
16. IBM Cloudant •  Globally distributed data layer for web and mobile applications •  MongoDB-style queries •  Advanced geospatial capabilities •  Full text search indexing 16
19. Mango •  MongoDB-style query language •  Declarative query syntax •  Introduced as Cloudant Query •  Contributed to Apache CouchDB 2.0 •  Also available in PouchDB 19 Image Credit: Mango with section on a white background by bangdoll, on Flickr
20. Comparing Map/Reduce and Cloudant Query 20 function(doc) {
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21. Image Credits 21 •  Complexity by Mark Skipper, on Flickr <https://www.flickr.com/photos/bitterjug/7670055210> •  wireframe by baldiri, on Flickr <https://www.flickr.com/photos/baldiri/5734993652> •  Polaroid 450 Portrait by overthinkingme, on Flickr <https://www.flickr.com/photos/overthinkingme/5021294924> •  The Old Cash Register by Kool Cats Photography, on Flickr <https://www.flickr.com/photos/katsrcool/8916079818> •  hexbin - hexagon logo repository <http://hexb.in/sticker.html> •  Untitled by ludovic, on Flickr <https://www.flickr.com/photos/psd/13109673843> •  Microservice architecture by Paul Downey, on Flickr <https://www.flickr.com/photos/psd/13109673843> •  Hack by Brian Rowe, on Flickr <https://www.flickr.com/photos/copyfighting/2171023967> •  Mango with section on a white background by bangdoll, on Flickr <https://www.flickr.com/photos/bangdoll/5665235102>
22. Bradley Holt Developer Advocate bradley.holt@us.ibm.com @BradleyHolt github.com/bradley-holt