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JFall 2020 - Sustainably growing the guild of software developers

2020-11-05 Between 18:00-18:40 my lightning talk will be played at JFall. In 5 minute talk, consisting of 20 slides I will dive into the growth of the number of software developers in the Netherlands and analyze if it is sustainable. A summary: There is a continuous high demand for software developers. New developers enter our guild of software developers each year, but not enough to fulfil the demand. And to be honest, growing our guild in size alone is not enough, we want each member to become a capable craftsman/woman.  So how can we increase the number of Software developers sustainably? Vincent takes a stance by calling on the responsibility of teams and patrons to help grow the profession of software development. He makes several suggestions for software developers and patrons to help our field grow sustainably. A preview of some of the suggestions: – Teams should have a healthy mix of senior and new developers. – A starting developer can grow faster by deliberately practicing sk
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Deep fakes, fake news, it's old news!

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The advances of AI and cheap compute power allow us to automate the making of “fake” media texts. Deepfake media generally points to media texts (e.g. audio, pictures and videos) portraying (celebrity) persona in events that have never taken place. The term deepfake references the use of deep learning to create the fake. The interconnectedness of the internet allows us to disseminate media texts with unparalleled speed and depth into (social) networks. Articles with false information disseminate with the same ease. The term “fake news” points to any type of “news” article containing false information. Some are spread with the intent to disinform. Don’t panic! Creating fakes and false information are not new. The spreading of false news as a (political) strategy has happened since at least the 13th century BC . Creating imitation pieces, like deepfakes, is probably equally old. The concept has been formulated as early as 100 BC .  The widespread availability of digital methods to cr
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Techy haiku

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It trickles past fingers Streaming to the greatest river Flowing code by me
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Refactor the Agile Manifesto!

Kill yr idols! by Sonic Youth I enthusiastically cheer to the spirit of agile software development! Though I do have a problem with the agile manifesto . The lines made a stand at that point of time. A stand to claim ownership of software development as the craft of software developers. Sadly the stance is weakened by the discussion that is implicit to the juxtaposition in each line. It can be a resounding message of what agile software development stands for. So why not refactor it? We refactor, rework text and code all the time. So here an unashamed refactor of the manifesto: To develop software with agility: Individuals and their interactions develop software. Their main focus is to develop working software. Responding to change is part of developing working software. The customer’s cooperation is necessary to develop working software. These are the guiding principles of agile software development. Unclear? Suggestions? Refactor needed? Let me kn
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Thinking about tech: Technological Determinism

Technology changes the world. Technology improves our lives. Just look at the Black Lives Matters movement. Social Media will drive the change of society to finally get rid of racism. It is the power of social media that drives this change. Technology marches in seven-league boots from one ruthless, revolutionary conquest to another, tearing down old factories and industries, flinging up new processes with terrifying rapidity. by Charles A. Beard The many grave fallacies in the paragraph above show technological determinism in all its reductionist crudeness. Technological determinism is the belief that technology is the main (positive) force that steers the direction of society. It reduces the full complexity of society to a crude [ technology > societal effect ] vision of history and societal change. The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan From left to right, Karl Marx's idea, that fast-changing technologies alter human lives, is pervasive
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Software development as a growing profession - Future

Software development is a growing profession. In three blogposts we’ll be looking at the past, present and future of software development. This post I’ll be looking at the foreseeable future of our profession.  As a software developer I receive quite a few job offers, even internationally. It’s been rumored that our profession is quite popular. So let’s put our popularity in numbers.  Sadly, I could only find some statistics on the US hint at the popularity of our profession. For the US it’s been estimated that by 2021 there will be a shortage of 1.4 million software developers. This is besides the estimated 7 million developers already to be employed in the US. So 1 in 6 software development positions remain unfulfilled. This doesn’t even seem to take a decline of developers into account, e.g. because of  or just changing their profession.  Because of a lack of data I’ll presume that software developers are globally equally desired as in th
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Software development as a growing profession - Present

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Software development is a growing profession. In three blog posts I’ll take a glance at the past, present and future of software development. This post looks at the amount of software developers today (2020). Today there are an estimated 23 million computer programmers, up to 26,5 million . Of these programmers, 15.5 million are professional software developers. The number still grows with 20% each year.  (I f you regress the number of programmers with a yearly growth factor of 1.2 (20%), you end up with a tidy 8 pro’s and 11 total programmers in 1940 .)  In other words, the number of developers doubles in less than 4 years. This means that on average 1 in 6 developers has less than 1 year of experience. Almost 1 in 3 developers has less than two years of experience. Over 2 in 5 developers has less than three years of experience. And to point out the obvious, half of all developers have less than 4 years of experience. This estimation seems to be confirmed by developers that report
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