I have a two-year-old daughter who adores Dr. Seuss. And as I was reading Cat in the Hat for the 214th time, I realized Dr. Seuss had it all figured out.
His words are odd. The cadence confusing. But there’s a gem hidden in all his children’s rhymes. You see, Dr. Seuss would have made an excellent engineer. Because great code isn’t about choosing the perfect method name or building out 95% test coverage.
All of that is great, but it doesn’t make great code - You Do.
It likely never feels that way. There’s a rhythm to software development that goes something like this:
- “Easy. I’ve got this.”
- “Uhhh, maybe not.”
- “HALP! I have no idea what the f*ck I’m doing.”
- “How did I not think of that before?!”
- “I AM A GOD.”
This process is okay if you’re comfortable having a mild psychotic break every sprint. I’m not.
We’re going about it all wrong. Putting ourselves — our egos — above our code. No judgement. I do it too. We’re human. It’s okay.
But I think we can bypass our egos and the emotional ups and downs it produces. This talk will focus on common pitfalls along the development lifecycle and distill Dr. Seuss’s excellent advice into concise steps developers can take before they write a single line of code.
In the words of Dr. Seuss: You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
