Devoxx Poland 2015: 5-10-15 years with Java
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- The document discusses the career progression of Java developers from juniors to principals over 15-32 years, focusing on changes in mindset, skills, and responsibilities at different stages. - As developers gain experience, their focus shifts from code quality to design, from asking questions to mentoring others, and from predictions to understanding true customer needs. - While Java remains a powerful platform, the most senior developers look beyond technologies to learning constantly, seeing their own ignorance, and impacting a wider community through frameworks and innovation.
Devoxx Poland 2015: 5-10-15 years with Java
- 1. @wseliga#DevoxxPL Platinum Sponsors: 5-10-15 years with Java from junior to master and back again Wojciech Seliga Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
- 2. 32years
- 5. from code.org Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License Only in USA itself!
- 6. No balance between supply and demand in the IT job market Photo by winnifredxoxo - Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
- 7. It’s easy to earn a lot Photo by Andrew Magill - Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 but earning a shitload means usually managerial path
- 8. –Richard Stallman “The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion.”
- 9. Photo by Hartwig HKD - Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0
- 10. years 0
- 11. • Popular (unis, internet, literature, open source, free) • Cross-platform • Relatively idiot proof • Good (free) tools • Good job market (salaries) • Sexy??? Why Java?
- 12. • The language rather simple and easy to learn • Well, it’s quite backward and I cannot boost my ego with fancy idioms; a lot of crap in the language dated to 200x’s or 199x’s. • Easy to (re)write lots of code (ideally from scratch), yeah!!! First Java thoughts and behaviours
- 13. • They often need to, but are afraid to ask • Focus on how to write something tersely, neatly, in a geeky way • Concentration on “I” - their own education, benefits, perspective, feelings
- 14. // an awesome trick from // http://stackoverflow.com/questions…. // which allows us to make it way! faster. ! // the code follows here ...
- 15. Picture by Patrick Barry CC BY SA 2.0 “They are stupid.! They have fucked up this code”
- 16. Focus on low level code quality • naming convention, • whitespaces, • checkstyle rules • unit test coverage, • some low level metrics
- 17. Predictions provided quickly, optimistically and eagerly (rule of thumb)
- 18. Spread shallow Zdjęcie jeffreyw - Creative Commons BY 2.0
- 21. I call them juniors and (later) grown-up juniors (mids)
- 23. “How” age
- 25. years 5
- 26. • Quite verbose and explicit language actually makes it easier to understand and maintain the code • Language supports the understanding that coding is about “write once, read many times” • Remembering when writing code that it will be read 100x more often • Backward compatibility is not that bad after all… Java afterthoughts and behaviours
- 27. • They need to ask others more seldom, but still are reluctant as it if would reveal their weakness • “We and Them Language” (devs vs. customers/users or “the business”/management) • Concentrated on the product and the domain
- 28. // it's safe to apply a simplified formula // and thus reduce the complexity // from O(n) into O(log(n)), which does help // a lot for long-haul flights. ! // the code follows here ...
- 29. Picture by Patrick Barry CC BY SA 2.0 “This code looks broken. Let’s see if we can fix it.”
- 30. Picture by Patrick Barry CC BY SA 2.0 Use The Force, Read The Source UTSL Use the Source, Luke
- 31. Focus on higher level code quality • correct design • consistency • adherence to requirements • functional test coverage • security • maintainability
- 32. • provide predictions more carefully • involve others • think about happy and unhappy paths • try to predict unpredictable
- 36. I call them seniors
- 38. The group where most of us consider themselves to belong And where the majority stops…
- 39. “What” age
- 41. years 10
- 42. • Quite verbose and explicit language actually makes it easier for newbies to pick up modules of non-trivial size and understand them • Good debuggers, stack traces, thread/ heapdumps and diagnosis tools are life savers. • Backward compatibility (maybe not 10+ years back…) is a really good thing in the wild (Scala, I am looking at you…) Further afterthoughts about Java
- 43. • They ask questions often, do not feel vulnerable • “It depends” guys • “We together” language (his dev team + business/management + customers/users) • Concentration on their team and the users
- 44. // Because JAA aviation rules allow // a simplified check here, together with // aircraft performance department we decided // (look at http://wiki....) // to use a simplified formula which allows us // to reduce O(n) complexity into O(log(n)) // and thus make it acceptably fast // for long-haul flights. ! // the code follows here ...
- 45. Picture by Patrick Barry CC BY SA 2.0 “This code looks strange. Let’s find out why they decided to implement it in this way”
- 46. • Fitting into the big picture • Response to Market Trends • Discovering real (often hidden) problems • Addressing business risks • Usability • User adoption • Upgrades/migrations • Future usage growth • Constant Learning
- 47. Feedback Loop Mentors Customers Users CI CD TDD DevOps Bug-fixing Code Review Release Cycle Experiments
- 48. Great Team Player != Yes Man
- 49. The ability to say “no” is the sign of true professionalism Picture by Stephen Almond, CC BY-SA 3.0
- 50. • very reluctant to provide any estimations upfront • eager to operate with ranges and probability • narrow down the estimates along the way Picture by FalseReflex, CC 3.0 BY-NC
- 51. –Niels Bohr “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future”
- 52. PI-shaped man
- 53. Eat like a bird and poop like an elephant Guy Kawasaki Photo by Megan Coughlin - CC BY-ND 2.0 Photo by blmiers2 - CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
- 56. I call them leaders and/or principals
- 57. The group where most of us aspire to belong, but many will never be
- 58. “Why” age
- 60. years 15
- 61. • It’s a truly powerful platform. The language itself hasn’t really changed, but the whole ecosystem has changed tremendously! • Amazing tools! • No serious successor today for enterprises • Java 8 finally brought well balanced language changes Current afterthoughts about Java
- 62. Focus on true customer needs, people around them and their growth
- 63. Picture by Patrick Barry CC BY SA 2.0 “Wow, such an unusual code. I didn’t think about it in this way. Maybe I was wrong…”
- 64. • Noticing and predicting the changes of the trends • Creating new trends • ???
- 65. PiPi-shaped Man
- 66. I call them unicorns
- 67. “With whom” age
- 68. Seniority - summed up Focus Technology Product Solving problem Customer Defining the right problem Needs assistance Independent Teaching others Impacting the company Technical capability Quality Code L&F Low Level System Design Usability Extensibility Architecture Maintainability Technical innovation Passive Local Introduction Team Buy-in Company Community Junior Mid Senior Principal Knowledge Span Fragments of a single stack Most of the stack, some element of other stacks Complete stack and a lot of elements of other stacks Various stacks (deeply!) Bugs Surprised Disappointed Expecting Leveraging
- 69. Seniority - cont. Watching Questioning & proposing Changing teammates Changing company Process Improvement Change Agent Big Picture Doesn’t care or learning System/Product understanding Domain understanding Domain expert (innovation) Stance Arrogant “Socrates” Open to Criticism Critical Typical Experience 1K - 5K hours 3K - 12K hours 7K-20K hours 15K+ hours Junior Mid Senior Principal Teaching/ mentoring Receiver Interns & Juniors Whole team All people (also outside) Estimation ! Eager & Naive Careful Reluctant Pessimistic Iterative Narrowing
- 70. Seniority - coding passion Junior Application Code Mid Reusable Libraries Senior Reusable Frameworks Principal Buy over Build… LoC
- 72. Yes, you can!
- 73. –Heraclitus “There is nothing permanent except change.”
- 74. Don’t concentrate on mastering only a technology Learn to learn constantly
- 75. Summary • Juniors assume other people ignorance, principals assume their own ignorance • Java as a platform and a language is far from dead • Mastering only Java puts you in a rut. A rut turns silently into a grave. Overheated job market is your secret enemy - it’s too easy to rest on laurels. • After 32 years of coding, I still know nothing
- 78. –Mahatma Gandhi “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
- 79. Questions ? @wseliga We are hiring in Gdańsk! Shameless plug