Hey everyone! Today, I celebrate a hero of mine, Kent Beck. Full of quite a few pieces of wisdom, Kent is an incredible thinker and writer. Today, I share two quotes from Kent, and discuss their implications. Make sure you vote for Developer Tea for the Net Awards! To vote, simply go to http://bit.ly/votetea and follow the instructions on the page!
Hey everyone! Today, I celebrate a hero of mine, Kent Beck. Full of quite a few pieces of wisdom, Kent is an incredible thinker and writer. Today, I share two quotes from Kent, and discuss their implications.
Make sure you vote for Developer Tea for the Net Awards! To vote, simply go to http://bit.ly/votetea and follow the instructions on the page!
Hey everyone and welcome to Developer Tea. My name is Jonathan Cottrell and today is a very special episode of Developer Tea. It is your inspiration episode for the week and it's a special edition of the inspiration episode. I'm going to call it the Kent Beck tribute episode because I'm going to be reading two quotes from Kent Beck's Twitter timeline because it's just that good. And to be quite honest, I could have read probably 10 tweets from Kent, but I know you don't have time for that and neither do I. So I chose two to share with you today. I hope they are as inspiring to you as they are to me. The first quote is very simple. It goes like this. The patient and the textbook should not be opened up at the same time. And if you think about it, that makes total sense, doesn't it? You shouldn't be, as a doctor, learning. Learning how to perform surgery on someone when you are performing surgery on them. And in the same way, we as programmers shouldn't be learning how to write a language when we are in a high-stakes environment. We shouldn't be learning how to write a programming language when we are working for a client. Instead, we should be separating our learning exercises from our actual high-stakes client work. Now the difference here is that we can actually learn. We can actually learn to program in what is it like a simulated real environment, whereas a doctor can't really accurately simulate a surgery situation. But the spirit of the quote stays the same. We shouldn't be doing things that are high-stakes and learning at the same time. Because what happens when we screw up? Well, screwing up is a major part of learning. You don't know how to do something. And one of the best ways to learn is to make mistakes. And learn. Where your knowledge is insufficient. And you can't expect your knowledge to become sufficient in time enough to make those really important decisions on the spot. You should give yourself room to fail. And that's the point of that tweet from Kent Beck. By the way, if you want to follow Kent, his name on Twitter is very simply Kent Beck. That's K-E-N-T-B-E-C-K. I highly recommend that if you don't know who Kent Beck is, you take about 10 minutes today to Google. What he has done for the computer science world. Okay, so the second quote is, Before you answer a question, take a moment to speculate why they asked that question now. I'm going to read that one more time. Before you answer a question, take a moment to speculate why they asked that question now. And really what Kent is saying is that a question is not simply the words that make up that question. A question has context. A question is coming from a human with feelings. And it's coming in a given scenario. It's coming with a lot more information surrounding it than just the words that make up that question. And so for us to accurately answer or address another person who is asking us a question, we have to understand or at least attempt to understand the context that that question is coming from in order to fully understand the meaning. In order to fully understand what that person is actually asking. A simple exposition of this idea is the situation where a child continuously asks the question, Why? And we as adults continuously respond by explaining why. And eventually we get to the meaning of life or where the universe came from. And the reality is that that child probably isn't trying to find the meaning of life. Or, Or the origin of the universe. But instead is trying to say that they are bored. Or perhaps that they are curious. Or they are enjoying and participating in conversation with you. And if you know that, especially as a parent, then you have a better way of responding to your child. Of teaching your child. And garnering that curiosity in order to help them learn more. All of these things can be learned from context. From understanding where the person is. Coming from. And this doesn't just apply to children. This applies to every person that you come in contact with. Consider the context. And I'll go back and re-read that quote once again. Before you answer a question, take a moment to speculate why they asked that question now. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Developer Tea. Kent, if you're listening, I'd love to have you on the show. I hope that all of you go and learn a little bit about what Kent Beck has done. And I hope that you've had fun in the software world, in the computer science world. If you have thoughts or suggestions, or if you'd like to respond to something that I said on this episode, you can reach out to me on Twitter at at Developer Tea. You can also email me at developertea at gmail.com. I love answering listener questions. You can even send in an audio recording of your question. And I can include your voice on this show. Thank you so much for listening to Developer Tea. And until next time, enjoy your tea. Thank you.