The Empathetic Programmer

The next time you feel the need to git blame and rant and start feeling incensed, maybe try looking for context and feeling empathy instead. Because, who knows, that git username, might even be yours...

Transcript

1. Test Dimensions and Font
2. Die Einfühlsame Programmierer reality: michael may
 twitter: codermay
 slack: codermay photo: michael may, uikonf 2016
3. A Prelude…
4. photo: dotSwift, 2016 dotSwift, January 2016, Paris
5. Lean Coffee East, March 2016, London photo: Michael May, 2016
6. UIKonf.com, February 2016 image: uikonf.com
7. Agile On The Bench, April 2016, London photo: Emily Webber, Agile On The Bench 2016
8. NSLondon, April 2016, London photo: Chris Leydon, 2016
9. UIKonf, May 2016, Berlin photo: Michael May, UIKonf
10. photo: www.flickr.com/photos/pasukaru76
11. So, let’s begin…
12. “don’t f*ck it up”
13. Meet, Sam…
14. image: androidify.com
15. photo:www.flickr.com/photos/mikelao
18. Who here works on a legacy code base?
19. Who would like to have a serious word with the previous authors?
20. photo: michael may, uikonf 2016
21. photo: Chris Leydon, 2015
22. photo: wrocloverb.com “legacy code is code without tests” - Michael Feathers
23. “legacy code is code without tests” - Michael Feathers [ photo: wrocloverb.com ]
25. Denial It’s not that bad. The AppDelegate is two thousand lines, but it could be worse.
26. Anger Who wrote this crap? 2000 lines! (stares hard at git blame)
27. Bargaining I’d say this is a 1 pointer, but could I have 8 point so I can rewrite it?
28. Depression It’s just hacks all the way down.
29. Acceptance Well, I guess a few more lines won’t hurt…
31. M.A.D Massive App Delegate
34. “Participants gather, build an agenda, and begin talking. Conversations are directed and productive because the agenda for the meeting was democratically generated.” leancoffee.org / german.leancoffee.org
35. “If you don't have context, how can you iterate? You can't. You can only recreate.” Lean Coffee East, London
36. Not Invented Here
37. “…when people use their own labor to construct a particular product, even if done badly, they value the end result more…” wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect
39. image: github.com/afnetworking
40. Security flaw leaves 25,000 iPhone and iPad apps vulnerable to attack www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2405825/security-flaw-leaves-25-000-iphone-and-ipad-apps-vulnerable-to-attack
41. After years of development, mostly by one person (despite being used by thousands of app developers), a security flaw has been found in the AFNetworking library
42. After years of development, mostly by one person (despite being used by thousands of app developers, many for paid apps) a security flaw has been found in the AFNetworking library
43. image: github.com/afnetworking
44. twitter.com/objective_neo “Cocoapods doing what it does best, waste time, money and causing massive headache for everyone.” Hosam Hassan @Objective_Neo
45. twitter.com/samnewman “Anyone can pick huge holes in a code base more than a year old, no matter who wrote it. So don’t be an asshat when inheriting code.” Sam Newman
 @samnewman
46. cocoapods.org/about
47. twitter.com/codermay github.com/michael-r-may instagram.com/michaelmay ☕
48. www.infoq.com/news/2015/01/leading-creative-collaboration
49. www.infoq.com/news/2015/01/leading-creative-collaboration Creative Akido
50. “…working with constraints instead of against them… listen based on the assumption that an idea … is worth discussing… find common ground…build on the idea by adding things…” www.infoq.com/news/2015/01/leading-creative-collaboration
51. Working with constraints
 Working with legacy code The assumption that an idea is worth discussing
 The assumption that the code is worth iterating on Build on the idea, by adding things
 Build on the code, by refactoring
52. Leading Creative Collaboration www.infoq.com/news/2015/01/leading-creative-collaboration
54. “At Slack, we believe that empathy is humanity’s most important superpower.” medium.com/@SlackEng image:brandfolder.com/slack
55. “Good pull requests are an act of empathy, for both the author and reviewer” medium.com/@SlackEng image:brandfolder.com/slack
56. image:brandfolder.com/slack Give it a good title, so people know what they’re getting into Use the description to say how you ended up with this solution Link to secondary material that can add more context Ask for specific feedback if it helps to focus the review effort Explain what’s going on medium.com/@SlackEng
57. “What tools are they missing that’s making it hard to read this code?” - Laura Savino photo: michael may, uikonf 2016
58. “...but developers also need to get a thicker skin. I should be able to review your work critically without you getting upset” NSLondon, London, May 2016
60. -(instancetype)init { self = [super init]; if(self != nil) { } return self;
61. -(instancetype)init { self = [super init]; if(self != nil) { } return self; “dead code”
62. “You are a terrible developer and you are messing with my baby. I’ll probably fire you on my return.”
63. photo:www.flickr.com/photos/enriquecarnicero/
65. The Social Coding Contract image: uikonf.com
66. image: uikonf.com realm.io/news/altconf-justin-searls-open-source-social-contract
67. “…there’s something magical about when two humans get in a room… we’ll find some way to compromise.” realm.io/news/altconf-justin-searls-open-source-social-contract image: twitter.com/searls
68. “At Slack, we believe that empathy is humanity’s most important superpower.” medium.com/@SlackEng photo: flickr.com/photos/levork
69. photo: flickr.com/photos/levork
70. We are not the code, our avatars, pull requests, tweets, comments or emojis Be curious, not judgemental, of others work Consider the context so that you can iterate, not recreate Give context to allow others to empathise and iterate on your work photo: flickr.com/photos/levork
72. Why Happiness At Work Counts, The Guardian “top motivator is "respect" … "type of work", "providing good service to customers", "the people you work with" and finally, good "work-life balance” www.theguardian.com/money/2011/jul/15/happiness-work-why-counts
73. respect providing good service the people you work with type of work good work-life balance
75. Why Does Happiness Matter, The Guardian “ …around half as likely to catch the cold virus and have a 50% lower risk of experiencing … a heart attack or stroke.” theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/03/why-does-happiness-matter
77. photo: michael may
78. UIKonf, May 2016, Berlin photo: Michael May, UIKonf
81. photo: michael may, of ellen shapiro, uikonf 2016
82. “The craft of programming begins with empathy, not formatting or languages or tools or algorithms or data structures.” - Kent Beck reality: michael may
 twitter: codermay
 slack: codermay