The Human-Speak Wizardry
Once upon a time, as Olga, the good witch of *whichever compass direction you like best* was searching for a better way to wrap her head around the mysterious concepts of “discipline” and “problems with documentation” in software development, in regards as to what exactly those two boil down to, in human speak…. the Help finally arrived from where she could least expect it!
Enter Stephane, a powerful Wizard of *whichever other compass direction you like best*, the one who is said to have authored this brilliant paragraph:
Sitting around the fire our party of developers wait for the arrival of the wizards Bruno and Stephane who, although unconfirmed, are rumored to be in the possession of the ancient and mysterious YML scroll.
With it, they can tap into great riches and untold magical powers.
The catch? They first need to journey through the cursed swamps of tedium to find the cypher known as docker instructions and with it unlock the secrets of the scroll and become the true masters of ‘compose’.
This is where you come in, as only with your help can they hope to come out of this adventure victorious… and alive.
It’s this very wizard Stephane whom Olga, the witch, is now fully able to credit for unlocking the above mentioned mysteries. How has he done it, you might ask? He’s arranged for another party of developers (well, in muggles’ terms they’d call this party “a group discussion” or “a presentation”) where he steered the conversation so brilliantly, that… with a little bit of focus and discipline, patiently following the complete live coverage of the party, up to the very final minutes or seconds, the wraps of ambiguity have been unveiled for the deep-digging witch :).
I’ll drop the fantasy world language at this point, switching to the ubiquitous “exact expression” style (which might get so trite and boring at times, I have to confess, especially since everyone seems to be certain that instructional “how-to” way of writing is the only one that is applicable for the world of tech). For years, I’ve been mingling with the developers who have spoken of agility, of mastery, of craftsmanship, and a boatload of other stuff… while the concept of Discipline has largely remained obscure. Well, that’s the way things were in the *realms* where I used to wander, and it’s slowly starting to dawn on me what this lack of attention must have had entailed for those said realms… but this would be the subject of another story.
Back to discipline. Once I’ve grasped what “discipline in software development” stands for, next thing I know: I gotta get some help for those wizards who champion the merits of discipline. To my surprise, I’ve found that next to nothing have been written over the years on the subject. The question that bares asking is this one: maybe, the prevalent neglect of discipline explains why many softdev org’s, startups or not, have not been great at what they do?
A very down-to-earth read on discipline that I’d recommend goes as far back as to 2007, and it’s called:
Another “today’s pick” article — Discipline is Freedom (for Software Developers) — features a broader advice more on a lifestyle-side; and includes paragraphs titled “Discipline in Your Craft” and “Discipline in Your Career”. Behold, yeomen *as well as yeo-women*, because your chance may not come again: those reads will provide you with guidance on the path to Wizardry!
… and, if you want to treat yourself to more of Stephane’s human-speak brilliancy, be sure to check out a podcast where — as Quandoo’s principal architect — he speaks on adding value to dining experiences and on a plethora of other subjects, including the ones related to AI, machine learning, and data science.
Further reading:
