środa, 21 marca 2012

Average polish Java developer is not an idiot for Zeus' sake!

If You live in Western Europe or US and visit Poland, You may strike general impression (looking at airport, cars, clothes fashion) that Poland is rather poor country.

Therefore: if society could not manage to generate wealthy "system", than You may infer that only logical explanation is that human beings living in given area must be somehow stupid. I don't know much about macro/psycho/social/ - economy, but let's temporarily agree about this hypothesis.

Average Java developer in Poland has mostly just a Master Degree (99,9%) in Computer Science (I guess that over 70%), usually there are just few Phds per company.

So, maybe Average Java developer in Poland is not a genius, but for Zeus' sake: when giving a talk at Java conference You don't have to explain to him/her that:
  • methods should be short
  • code should be simple, simple, simple
  • 2.0 - 1.1 is almost 0.9 when operating on doubles
  • duplication in code is bad (but not always!!!)
  • SSD is faster than HDD
We get it, really:P
And some of us even understand laser at the quantum level:PPP

//============================================

33 Degree Conference was a great event (again), I would like to thank every single one for awesome vibes, see You next year:)))
Special thanks to Grzesiek!
Full conference summary at the weekend, after coming back home from workshop...

14 komentarzy:

GG pisze...

Hi, you are absolutely right. I had the same feeling. Why they treat my like an idiot? Maybe they shouldn't measure another's corn by their's own bushel? Btw. your first presentation was great.

Anonimowy pisze...

Was that Uncle Bob? It's just his style, all over the world ;-)

Sławek Sobótka pisze...

Uncle's style - I know it well:)
I think I have watched his every single presentation that is available online.

Post is just a general irony abut keynotes attitude:)

Michał Gruca pisze...

Similar feeling here. However I got bit different opinion on why some talks where structured this way.

marcin pisze...

My feelings are just opposite - it really doesn't do harm to remind about keeping code clean (short methods,DRY etc). Most devs probably already heard that many times but still... does all the code you see looks like it was written by Uncle Bob? Seriously, some things are worth being repeated over and over. Even if it would change the way 1 developer of 650 present at the conference writes his code.

I personally didn't feel like Uncle Bob was treating me like an idiot. And of course I really enjoy his style :)

Konrad Garus pisze...

I strongly disagree with and did not really like Uncle's talk, but the other things on your list are not that bad.

Thing is, I know why 2.0 - 1.1 is not 0.9, and I still hate to get .8999 all over the place. Most of the time that's just getting between me and the job I need to do without really adding anything. Point of that is: Some things do not have to be the way they are in C or Java, and actually the other way is worth a try.

Keep it simple, write tests, write good code - that's just keynote style. :-) Those are hazy by design. If you address wide audience with wide topic, you go a mile wide, an inch deep, and the measure of success is whether you inspire anyone to dig deeper by themselves. I did not expect Nate to make me a craftsman in an hour (anyone did?), but still I found some points on shaping culture inspiring. Same thing with Jurgen.

Unknown pisze...

I totally agree. I'm disapointed with Uncle Bob's keynote. I like him and I've even took his authograph in my Clean code copy. But he should share more knowledge not only his aura and nice smile.
Repeating the same basic rules is pointless. Move on!

bmajsak pisze...

That's why I skipped both talks. You shouldn't expect too many deep insights from the keynote. It's targeted to broad audience - meaning you need to find the right balance as a speaker. Entertain and sell some bits and pieces. Expecting something more than just a "common sense" when you are more than just an "average developer" is wrong :)

murygin pisze...

If You live in Western Europe or US and visit Poland, You may strike general impression (looking at airport, cars, clothes fashion) that Poland is rather poor country.

Compared to Berlin (which not really Western Europe...) it's hard to find a difference to Krakov when you look at airport, cars and fashion. When I arrived yesterday back from 33degree I even thought that in some way Berlin is more "East Europe" than Krakov.

streser pisze...

Ok, maybe something what was told was obvious for many of ppl there. But I've seen few (or even more than few) developers there who was pretty confused when they saw 2.0 - 1.1 is not 0.9. Yeah - their are probably Java developers.

This 70% which you wrote... Well... IMHO more than 70% of "programmers" in organisations (I mean 70% of all "programmers" in PL) - especially in "Corporations" shouldn't ever write any line of code...

And yeah - most of the programmers know that code should be simple but they are not making it simple at all... How did it happen that we have so many "Legacy Systems" now?

The problem is that ppl described above are rarely participating in conferences or other events (or even if they are there - because someone send them) They almost always saying - "well it will not works for us because...". They are not reading blogs or books, they are not active in any communities or even they don't know that there are any communities like Java Users Groups.

Last year at ACE conference someone said that he is from Krakow and works for company where are about 3000 developers, and all of them are convinced that the way how they working is "Agile approach" cause someone said it. The problem was that at Agile Central Europe Conference which was next-door was only 2 guys from this company.

I'm sure that the same probably happened at 33rdDegree Conference.

Some programmers just coming everyday to their office to write some lines of code (most of them are "if...else...else...else.." statements) through 8 hours and than back home and did not care if this code is simple/clean/good/(or even is it working) till someone is paying them.

So fortunately keynotes like this could be addressed for people described above and there is some probability that they will finally understand that coding is something more than just writing lines of code.

It is some kind of evangelism :)

Maybe good Idea would be distinguish conferences or tracks for beginners and advanced... I don't know... :)

szimano pisze...

Is *just* MSc sarcasm ? If not then you are wrong - in the anglosaxon countries hardly anyone has MSc - they either have BSc or nothing ;-)

Just my 3 grosze ;-)

Sławek Sobótka pisze...

@szimano: yeap I know that;P
all this "just" and "poverty" is just a rhetoric figure

@streser
You mainly answered yourself: "Java masters" subtitle of the conference determines audience somehow...

btw: legacy is legacy (sometimes imported from abroad) and there is no simple spell

one though about need of repeating truisms:
if You repeat the same thing there just 2 possible scenarios:

a) people understand, therefore: You may stop talking

b) people can not understand (they are unable to understand or You are a bad teacher and You are doing something wrong), therefore: You also may stop talking

Anonimowy pisze...

the english used here is soooo repulsively wrong. hurts my heart, truly.
can't speak it - don't speak it.

Sławek Sobótka pisze...

>the english used here is soooo
>repulsively wrong.

true, true Sir...
You see: English is not the language of my mother, so I simply use:
- English vocabulary just to map my thoughts to some commonly known "dictionary of symbols"
- Polish grammar to shape my thoughts.

So actually it can't be called English, I know.

But my intention was to communicate my mind with other minds - i have chosen this form/protocol because I wanted so.

Do You have any trouble with understanding general idea behind those visual symbols of thoughts? Does grammar stops You from interpreting message?
If so, than I'm sorry:P
I can't do anything to help You, just skip this text. There is no obligation to read it.

>hurts my heart, truly.

What makes You believe that I could bother about heart, liver, hottonia or whatever part of inner gore of some anonymous coward? :PPP

Do You think that You are Elvis or something?

please...

>can't speak it - don't speak it.

Why?
Many people can't do X, but does X...
Maybe to practice, maybe they are ignorants...

What makes You to believe in this statement?

Is it Your inner belief, commandment of Your religion or maybe superstition of Your local society?