SpringOne Tour by Pivotal Sifting Technologies - Separating the Wheat From the Chaff Nathaniel T. Schutta

1. Nathaniel T. Schutta
@ntschutta
Sifting Technologies - Separating
the Wheat From the Chaff

2. Technology changes.

3. Constantly.

4. Feature not a bug.

5. Keeps things interesting…

6. We want to avoid legacy platforms.

7. But we can’t change things
every few months.

8. “Our app has 4 different
UI frameworks…”

9. Developers kept chasing
the new hotness.

10. How do we avoid that?

11. How do we evaluate
new technology?

12. I have no idea what language/
framework/platform is “next”.

13. No one does.

14. But I can guarantee you this much:

15. It will be different than
what we use today.

16. Five years from now we will be using
something that isn’t invented yet.

17. What do we do about that?

18. Evaluating technology is a key skill.

19. Chasing the new thing.

20. Technology changes.

21. Constantly.

22. Tempting to always chase
the “new thing”.

23. Bleeding edge.

24. It’s fun!

25. Part of being in this industry.

26. Our understanding constantly evolves.

28. Let’s be honest…

29. Developers have opinions!

30. Often *very* strong opinions.

31. Maybe we fear old things?

33. Predictable hype cycle.

34. https://mobile.twitter.com/cote/status/963481741171265537

35. How do we know where
not to use a technology?

36. Trial and error.

37. Developers tend to get bored quickly.

39. Learning keeps it fresh.

40. But we have to deliver business value.

41. Can’t do that if we’re
always experimenting.

42. Have to commit at some point.

43. Develop some expertise.

44. Bleeding edge…means you will bleed!

45. Pioneers…the ones with
arrows in their backs.

46. What is your strategy?

47. How do we avoid dead platforms?

48. Without constantly
changing direction?

49. Strategy.

50. Hope is not a strategy!

51. But it is what rebellions are built on.

52. We need to be deliberate.

53. There are a lot of bits out there...

54. New languages, techniques, approaches.

55. How do you keep up?

56. Blogs? Books? Twitter?
Podcasts? Conferences?

58. Develop a routine.

59. Block out Friday afternoon.
Tuesday over lunch. Whatever fits.

60. Consider “morning coffee”.

61. Take 15-30 minutes in the
morning to peruse the tech news.

62. Before the day gets away from you…

63. Attention is precious.

64. — Seth Godin
“Attention is a bit like real estate, in that
they're not making any more of it.
Unlike real estate, though, it keeps
going up in value.”
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/07/
paying-attention-to-the-attention-economy.html

65. Don’t waste it.

66. Be selective.

67. Can’t read it all.

68. http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/04/21/135508305/the-sad-
beautiful-fact-that-were-all-going-to-miss-almost-everything
In fact, you’ll miss almost everything.

69. We cannot adopt every new thing.

70. How do we know where
to invest our time?

71. Hacker’s Radar?
http://www.paulgraham.com/javacover.html

72. “I have a hunch that [Java] won't be
a very successful language.”

73. Never written a line of Java,
glanced at some books.

74. Need more than just a hunch.

75. “Judging Covers” can be a useful filter.

76. But beware bias.

77. Where is the community?

79. Are you skating to
where the puck *was*?

80. Technology Radar.
https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar

82. Remember Google’s 20% time?

83. Fallen out of favor in some circles…

84. Innovation Fridays.

85. Could you carve out Friday afternoons?

86. How about Tuesday Tech Talks?

87. Architectural Briefings.
https://github.com/stuarthalloway/presentations/wiki/Architectural-Briefings

88. One person does some research,
presents to the team.

89. And no, you don’t need to be an
architect to present!

90. Why should we use X?

91. What do you need to know to
answer the “why”?

92. What do you need to
know in order to use X?

93. Keep it short - 45 minutes.

94. Not a how to.

95. Beyond the initial documentation.

96. Consider a basic template
for the research…

97. What is X?

98. What problems does it solve?

99. Is it simple?

100. Where does it make sense to use it?

101. Where *doesn’t* it make sense to use it?

102. What are the tradeoffs?

103. — Susan J. Fowler
Production-Ready Microservices
When we find ourselves presented with
technology that promises to offer us
drastic improvements, we need to look
for the trade-offs.

104. What are the alternatives?

105. What is the cost?

106. Cost is multi-faceted.

107. What does it cost to get
started? Training? Licenses?

108. How much does it cost to
develop the solution?

109. What about maintenance costs?

110. How much hardware does
the solution require?

111. Increasing one might make
sense if it lowers others…

112. Any number of criteria we
can use for evaluation.

113. More on that in a bit!

114. These are participatory events!

115. Attendees should be taking notes.

116. Asking questions.

117. Using their own experiences.

118. Do you agree? Why or why not?

119. By the way, you are up next week…

120. Pass the briefing filter?

121. Hands on time.

122. Workshop it.

123. Couple of hours.

124. A few exercises.

125. Focus on how to, simple setup.

126. Pass the hands on filter?

127. Time to trial it in the organization.

128. Real project work that is a good fit.

129. Probably not a “bet the
company” project though!

130. The new hotness is not our
only concern though.

131. Need to stay current on the things
we are using day in day out.

134. Oops.

135. Don’t think you’re a target?

138. — Justin Smith
At high velocity, the three Rs starve
attacks of the resources they need to
grow. It’s a complete 180-degree change
from the traditional careful aversion to
change to mitigate risk. Go fast to stay
safer — in other words, speed reduces
risk.

139. What is your patching strategy?

140. What version of X are you on?

141. Some organizations have
a policy of N or N-1.

142. Do they measure it?
Do they enforce it?

143. What needs to change in your
culture to stay at N?

144. What hurts more? Changing
your patching strategy?

145. Or being on the receiving end of the
latest “largest hack ever”?

146. What should we evaluate?

147. Any number of things we can look at.

148. Litmus tests if you will.

149. Fitness functions!

150. What is important to you?

151. Documentation.

152. Is there any?

153. Is it clear?

154. Is it up to date?

155. Is there enough to get you started?

156. Is there enough to keep you going?

157. Very different needs in
year 2 with a product…

158. Community.

159. How large is it?

160. Is it thriving?

161. Is it friendly?

162. Does it welcome new members?

163. Or make them feel inferior?

164. What does the community value?

165. Testing? Clean code? Obfuscation?

166. Committer diversity.

167. Is there a corporate backer?

168. Do all the committers
work at one company?

169. If so, is it strategic to that company?

170. What happens if it isn’t
strategic tomorrow?

171. Codebase.

172. Is the code clean?

173. Is it readable?

174. Are there tests?

175. Could you fork it if you had to?

176. Testability.

177. Does it encourage testing?

178. Or make it nearly impossible?

179. Update history.

180. When was the last commit?

181. Is this a dead project?

182. Or just a mature one?

183. Maturity.

184. Is it a 0.0.2 product?

185. Or are we on 3.7?

186. Is it changing rapidly?

187. Are there breaking
changes on the horizon?

188. Is there an upgrade path?

189. How quickly are new
versions coming out?

190. Can your project consume
changes at that pace?

191. https://mobile.twitter.com/joeerl/status/930774515512201216

192. Stability.

193. Are new releases solid?

194. Or is there a constant
stream of patches?

195. How quickly would you put a
new release into prod?

196. Extensibility.

197. How hard is it to add something?

198. Is there a plugin model?

199. Or are you at the mercy
of the committers?

200. Support.

201. Can you buy a support contract?

202. Can you find help online?

203. Check Stack Overflow…

204. Training.

205. Can you get training?

206. What if you can’t?

207. Can you build your own?

208. Hiring.

209. Will you get any hits on a job post?

210. Does it appear on anyone’s resume?

211. Where does your
developers’ appetites sit?

212. Do not underestimate the
feelings of your team!

213. People can take these
decisions very personally.

214. Are your current developers
lining up to learn it?

215. Or avoiding it like the plague?

216. Corporate fit.

217. Does it fit in *your* company?

218. What does your company value?

219. Is it a “breaking change” for
your organization?

220. Will there be any…political roadblocks?

221. Licensing.

222. How is the product licensed?

223. Is it open source?

224. If so, will your lawyers sign off
on the specific license?

225. Can you company afford to
“roll their own” if need be?

226. If it is commercial, best perform some
due diligence on the vendor.

227. Are they well funded?

228. What is their track record?

229. Are you comfortable
working with them?

230. Usage.

231. Is anyone else using it?

232. What are other companies
embracing?

233. Be careful here…

234. Which technology
should *you* choose?

235. https://twitter.com/KentBeck/status/596007846887628801

236. What does your project need?

237. Are you making a
corporate level decision?

238. Or just for your current project?

239. Do your homework!

240. Be strategic.

241. Staying current is an
ongoing proposition.

242. Not a one time activity.

243. Keep a weather eye out…

244. What is coming in the near future?

245. Leverage industry resources.

246. Use your network.

247. Get your hands dirty.

248. Do what is right for *you*!

249. Consider this guy’s advice…

250. https://mobile.twitter.com/martinfowler/status/949323421619548161

252. Watch out for analysis paralysis.

253. Take comfort…

254. No matter what you choose,
you will be wrong.

255. Over a long enough timeframe.

256. Make decisions based on
what we know today.

257. Good luck!

258. Questions?

259. Nathaniel T. Schutta
@ntschutta
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