Finding Beauty in the Mundane - WCR

Amongst the exciting challenges of making software, there are some tasks we try to avoid: linting files, updating dependencies, writing docs. In this talk, you’ll learn how to make even the most mundane development tasks exciting in order to improve your applications and become your team’s hero.

Presented at Windy City Rails on September 14th, 2017

Transcript

1. Finding Beauty in the Mundane Megan Tiu Windy City Rails - September 14, 2017
2. Hi there my name is Megan Tiu I am: Senior Software Engineer at CallRail Co-organizer of Rails Girls Atlanta @megantiu on Twitter megantiu on GitHub
3. Finding Beauty in the Mundane Megan Tiu Windy City Rails - September 14, 2017
4. We can’t love every part of our jobs
5. Some tasks are less fun than others
6. How can we love our jobs more?
7. Empathy
8. All computer problems are people problems.
10. Technical debt
11. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
12. What we do is so much more than code
13. What we do is so much more than best practices
14. What we do is so much more than prestige
15. It’s about respect for our teammates
16. It’s about respect for our users
17. It’s about respect for ourselves
19. How can we change our perspective?
20. Updating dependencies
22. • more secure applications
23. • exposure to the open source community
24. • use of supported versions
26. Writing Documentation
28. Docs help spread knowledge
29. Docs help prevent silos
30. Docs help make onboarding easy
31. Documentation helps: • New developers • Current developers • Future developers • Support team members • You, later
32. Writing documentation is a concrete way to help others
33. How can you start?
34. Make a glossary of common terms
35. Comment your code as you write it
37. Linting
40. • opportunity for a quick win
41. • learn best practices
42. • more consistent codebase
43. Establish a style guide
46. Refactoring
48. Sometimes it’s necessary
49. We all want readable code
50. Refactoring is the closest we have to visual art
51. #==$
54. Refactoring is beautiful ✨
56. Code is beautiful
57. Software is beautiful
58. Wrapping up
59. How can we love our jobs more?
60. • Updating dependencies • Writing documentation • Linting • Refactoring
61. Change takes time
62. Empathy
63. Better software through empathy
64. Positivity
65. Through good development practices, we can make good change together
67. Spread this mindset to your team!
69. Senior Software Engineer at CallRail Co-organizer of Rails Girls Atlanta @megantiu on Twitter megantiu on GitHub Again, my name is Megan Tiu I am: Thank you!