The Liberal Arts Programmer

“The People Problem” presents new and foreign challenges. There’s nothing quite like working with others on real products to transform egocentric practice into empathic pragmatism. My search for a new bag of tricks led me back to my earlier studies in the humanities. Suddenly my liberal arts education -- formerly regarded as tangential even if interesting -- felt applicable to more than cocktail party conversation.

In this talk we take a look at disciplines outside the purview of software development with an eye for how borrowed ideas can yield not only inspiration and analogy, but real innovations and breakthroughs. I’ll share examples from fine art, psychology, history and literature: examples that influence my approach and the work of others.

Transcript

1. THE LIBERAL ARTS PROGRAMMER 18 Nov, 2015 Build Stuff - Vilnius, Lithuania
2. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. (REFERENCE THIS TALK AND @BUILDSTUFFLT) HI. I’M DAVE. (TWEET AT ME!) Dave Laribee Full Stack Coach XP’ + Design Thinking Startups to Fortune 50 Former VersionOne ALT.NET O.G.
3. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
4. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. There are 8 million stories in the naked city… these are a few ours.
5. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. I BUILD TEAMS. TOGETHER WE BUILD PRODUCTS.
6. https://youtu.be/S_mMKXFaLaE
7. @laribee #fullstacktdd © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. per·i·pa·tet·ic ˌperēpəˈtedik/ adjective 1. Traveling from place to place, especially working or based in various places for relatively short periods. 2. Aristotelian.
10. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. BACKGROUND
12. #libartsprog @laribee Boss Architect Developer
13. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
14. #libartsprog @laribee XP TDD OO FUNCTIONAL DDD KANBAN ARCHITECTURE PATTERNS USER STORIES
15. #libartsprog @laribee
16. #libartsprog @laribee XP TDD OO FUNCTIONAL DDD KANBAN ARCHITECTURE PATTERNS USER STORIES
17. #libartsprog @laribee
19. #libartsprog @laribee ART HISTORY FINE ART ANTIQUITY EVOLUTION MILITARY HISTORY BIOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY ARCHITECTURE LANGUAGE
20. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. WHAT ARE HUMANS GOOD AT? WHAT MAKES US SPECIAL?
21. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. TRIVIA?
22. http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/
23. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. STORIES?
24. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. “Writers who never get blocked, tired, or drunk.” l)VNBOT
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25. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. INNOVATION?
26. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. IUUQJNBHJOBUJPOFOHJOFTDPNJFJ@CBTJDTQIQ
28. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. HOW CAN WE DEAL WITH THE ROBOT THREAT?
29. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
30. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
31. CONNECTIONS!
32. @laribee #fullstacktdd © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. “Lateral thinking is solving problems through an indirect and creative approach, using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic.” -BUFSBM
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33. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
34. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. ART DESIGN ARCHITECTURE PSYCHOLOGY HISTORY EVOLUTION & BIOLOGY
35. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. ARCHITECTURE
36. Oscar Niemeyer
37. Brasilia
38. Brasilia
39. Brasilia
40. Oscar Niemeyer
41. Le Corbusier
42. http://www.tomsachs.org/work/unite
43. Unité d'habitation
44. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
45. @laribee #fullstacktdd © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. “A chair is a machine for sitting.”
46. Le Corbusier
47. Buckminster Fuller
48. Dymaxion Car
49. Dymaxion Car
50. @laribee #fullstacktdd © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. Doing more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing. EPHEMERALIZATION IUUQTFOXJLJQFEJBPSHXJLJ&QIFNFSBMJ[BUJPO
51. @laribee #fullstacktdd © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
52. @laribee #fullstacktdd © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. Not Rocket Science. This isn’t rocket science. The basic idea is very simple. You separate the UI from the business rules by passing simple data structures between the two. You don’t let your controllers know anything about the business rules. Instead, the controllers unpack the HttpRequest object into a simple vanilla data structure, and then pass that data structure to an interactor object that implements the use case by invoking business objects. The interactor then gathers the response data into another vanilla data structure and passes it back to the UI. The views do not know about the business objects. They just look in that data structure and present the response. There are, of course, more details than that; and they are well described in the references above. But at the bottom, that’s all there is to it. 6ODMF
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53. James Wines - Highrise of Homes
54. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. ARCHITECTURE
55. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. ART DESIGN ARCHITECTURE PSYCHOLOGY HISTORY EVOLUTION & BIOLOGY
56. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. HISTORY
57. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. TUNNEL OF EUPALINOS
58. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. TWO TEAMS, 6TH CENTURY BCE
59. http://blah.com
60. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
61. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. IUUQXXXBQJpSTUDPN
62. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. HISTORY
63. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. ART DESIGN ARCHITECTURE PSYCHOLOGY HISTORY EVOLUTION & BIOLOGY
64. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. DESIGN
65. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. HEURISTICS
67. http://martinfowler.com/bliki/BeckDesignRules.html
68. IUUQXXXOOHSPVQDPNBSUJDMFTUFOVTBCJMJUZIFVSJTUJDT
69. Code : Product :: Developer : User
70. Code : Product :: Developer : User A codebase is a user experience. Users of codebases are called developers.
71. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. DESIGN
72. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. ART DESIGN ARCHITECTURE PSYCHOLOGY HISTORY EVOLUTION & BIOLOGY
73. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. EVOLUTION & BIOLOGY
74. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. EMERGENT DESIGN
75. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iteration
76. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_Design
77. Pretty sure nope.
79. Big Ball of Mud - Brian Foote & Joseph Yoder
80. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. EVOLUTION & BIOLOGY
81. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. ART DESIGN ARCHITECTURE PSYCHOLOGY HISTORY EVOLUTION & BIOLOGY
82. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
83. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. WHY DOES THIS MATTER?
84. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. PROGRAMMING WITH PEOPLE!
85. #squadgoals
86. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. STORYTELLING OVER STORY
87. #libartsprog @laribee l0VS
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89. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
90. Gestalt noun, /ɡəˈSHtält,-ˈSHtôlt/” 1. a configuration, pattern, or organized field having specific properties that cannot be derived from the summation of its component parts; a unified whole. 2. an instance of example of such a unified whole. IUUQTFOXJLJQFEJBPSHXJLJ(FTUBMU@QTZDIPMPHZ
91. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
92. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
93. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC.
94. @laribee #libartsprog © 2015 Nerd/Noir, LLC. TO BE CONTINUED… (Thank you for now!)