{"id":879,"date":"2011-11-21T19:09:33","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T19:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agraham.org\/blog\/?p=879"},"modified":"2024-06-26T18:03:18","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T18:03:18","slug":"quick-write-up-of-dunddd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/agraham.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/21\/quick-write-up-of-dunddd\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick write up of #DunDDD"},"content":{"rendered":"

DunDDD<\/acronym> took place on Saturday in Dundee. The turnout was reasonable, maybe 70-80. The variety of sessions on offer wasn\u2019t as good as DDD<\/acronym> Scotland but being so close made up for it. No Grok talks at lunch but instead some pizza supplied by NCR. There was the usual swag throughout t-shirts, back massagers, bottle openers, lollies and sweeties but no books\/licences as prizes. I think DDD<\/acronym> Scotland normally has about 250 people though so you got a lot more interaction with speakers and more chance of face time to ask further questions between sessions if you needed it.<\/p>\n

I previously attended DDD<\/acronym> Scotland in 2009 and 2010<\/a>, but didn’t this year for some reason I don’t remember. I think it and the 2008 one clashed with a craft fairs or something.<\/p>\n

Session 1 \u2013 Data Mining the Social Web<\/h2>\n

@GaryShort<\/a><\/p>\n

An old version of the slideshow exists here<\/a> (he uses the Build conference in his current one and this has his old contact info at previous job on it) <\/p>\n

Interesting talk about how you can data mine info from social networks. He used twitter as his example as the code for that is comparatively simple to implement (didn\u2019t get to showing code and can\u2019t see online). There are existing tools which do some of the things<\/a> he was mentioning but he was custom building a lot more.<\/p>\n

Some ways this could be useful are launching a product and seeing what the reaction is, if there is suddenly a lot of talk of your new product either it\u2019s so amazing and life changing that everyone is keen to market for you. Or something you did in the launch has went wrong and it is broken\/buggy. With the tools you could also (to some extent) track where people are when they mention you, so launch a new product and it is going down a storm in English speaking areas but your German translation is terrible etc. Some tools I already knew about can tell what way to structure your tweets (where to position links) and at what times people retweet or respond to them etc \u2013 essential to know when to maximise response for campaigns etc. <\/p>\n

Session 2 \u2013 Philosophy of Unix<\/del> Code<\/h2>\n

Craig Nicol<\/a> <\/p>\n

Mind Map of Philosophy of Code<\/a><\/p>\n

The list of quotes is on Gary Park on DunDDD<\/acronym><\/p>\n

Session wasn\u2019t as advertised. Basically a slideshow of quotes, most of which I was already familiar with but when pulled together show a coherent philosophy for writing code. It essentially boiled down to write good code that is needed, when it is needed that is well tested and documented. <\/p>\n

Session 3 \u2013 The Happy Developer \u2013 Is it a myth?<\/h2>\n

Andy Gibson<\/a><\/p>\n

Explored ideas about what makes your job or work environment enjoyable or not. Lots of crowd interaction etc. Too long to fit in an hour and would have liked to have seen a longer version. Session was amusing for the peanut gallery in the back. One manager who came along made a series of contradictory statements in an attempt to nitpick almost every slide. For example complaining he paid for people to spend 30 man years on a terrible unfinished product that no one wanted then 5 minutes later that developers asking for specifications and testers were just whining. <\/p>\n

Someone suggested that an essential to do your job is a comfy chair, nonsense he proclaims, I lie in bed and code and someone I know sits on a sofa in a coffee shop so doesn\u2019t need a desk. Missing the point that the general was a comfortable place to be whilst spending 8 hours at a PC and that for that developer the specific was a chair, but for the guy at the back it was a bed etc. <\/p>\n

The main case study\/anecdote at the start of the presentation was Craig Murphy<\/a> who was told to do a task and it would take 2-3 weeks. He looked at the task and said no \u2013 2-3 months. With the feature creep that this project managed then allowed, 2 years later the project was still not finished. (paraphrasing, can’t remember exact details). <\/p>\n

Apologies to Barry Carr for mistakenly saying it was him. I was wrong on the interwebs.<\/p>\n

Session 4 \u2013 The real time web is shocking!<\/h2>\n

Presented by Phil Leggetter<\/a>, a developer evangelist at Pusher<\/a> a company making technology for the real time web. <\/p>\n

It had interesting code examples showing how you can update your website using real time information. Not sure how useful this is right now but it\u2019s good to know this is possible using html5 magic. The shopping example on his site was really interesting and might have potential. Really looks to be at a prototype stage right now though, especially with it relying on html5 which we probably can\u2019t move anything to be using yet. The demo used Websockets which he said there are .Net CLR\/Silverlight libraries available for so it might be interesting to play around with them at some point. <\/p>\n

Session 5 \u2013 Jedi Mind Control 101, the art of ethical persuasion<\/h2>\n

@RobLally<\/a><\/p>\n

This was probably the most useful of the sessions. Guide to how to persuade people to your point of view. I found it amusing and informative throughout. Some of the notes I took down (unfortunately the slideshow isn\u2019t available online): <\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to change people\u2019s mind, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are wrong, hard to change mind of experiences people<\/p>\n

When making an argument present new information early.<\/p>\n

When making an argument present weaknesses in your argument early<\/p>\n

Establish your expertise, or lack of, early<\/p>\n

Ask for higher value items first when there are multiple acceptable widgets you want<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t diminish your efforts, when someone asks for a favour never say <\/p>\n