Posts Tagged ‘AgileDevelopment’
[DevoxxFR2012] Proud to Be a Developer?
Lecturer
Pierre Pezziardi has built a career as an entrepreneur and innovator in technology and finance, co-founding OCTO Technology and the Université du SI, as well as launching Octopus Microfinance and NotreBanque. His work promotes “convivial informatics”—systems that break down organizational silos, empower individuals, and support self-organizing teams. In 2005, Pierre initiated Octopus, an open-source platform for microfinance that fosters global collaboration on lean and agile methods to improve financial access for the underprivileged. He contributed to BabyLoan, France’s first peer-to-peer microcredit operator. From 2010, as CIO at Bred Banque Populaire, he applied lean techniques to banking. Since 2011, Pierre has led NotreBanque, developing affordable, transparent community financial tools.
Abstract
Pierre Pezziardi probes the role of developers in contemporary enterprises, questioning whether the profession garners the respect it deserves amid perceptions of high costs and limited value. He traces the historical evolution from artisanal coding to industrialized processes, critiquing how this shift has diminished developer autonomy and innovation. Through analogies to manufacturing and personal anecdotes, Pezziardi advocates for lean principles, self-organization, and cultural shifts to restore pride in development. The presentation analyzes systemic issues like productivity stagnation and organizational silos, proposing methodologies that empower developers as key innovators in business success.
The Developer’s Image: Perceptions and Realities in Enterprise
Pierre Pezziardi opens by addressing the awkwardness developers often feel when describing their profession, noting the common reaction of polite disinterest or skepticism from non-technical interlocutors. He posits that this stems from informatics’ reputation as expensive, delayed, and often unhelpful in real business contexts. Pezziardi argues this image is not unfounded, rooted in double exhaustion: declining productivity in large systems and outdated organizational models ill-suited to modern technology.
He explains productivity stagnation: marginal costs for new features rise due to legacy complexity, while organizational exhaustion manifests in siloed structures that hinder collaboration. Pezziardi draws historical parallels to the industrial revolution, where artisanal crafts gave way to assembly lines, similarly in software where developers became cogs in bureaucratic machines.
Pezziardi’s methodology involves reflective questioning: why do developers hesitate to claim their role? He suggests it’s because enterprises view informatics as a cost center rather than a value creator, leading to undervaluation.
Historical Evolution: From Artisanal to Industrialized Development
Pezziardi traces software’s trajectory from the 1960s, when programmers crafted bespoke solutions on punch cards, to today’s industrialized processes. He critiques the “software factory” model, where specialization fragments work—analysts specify, coders implement, testers verify—mirroring Taylorist principles.
This fragmentation, Pezziardi analyzes, breeds inefficiency: specifications become outdated, leading to rework and delays. He contrasts this with lean manufacturing’s origins in Toyota, where empowered workers halt lines to fix issues, fostering continuous improvement.
Pezziardi’s personal anecdote from banking illustrates: implementing lean reduced delivery times from months to weeks by involving developers in business decisions, eliminating wasteful handoffs.
Implications: traditional models stifle innovation; lean empowers developers as problem-solvers, aligning with agile’s emphasis on cross-functional teams.
Lean Principles: Empowering Developers Through Autonomy and Collaboration
Pezziardi advocates lean as a remedy, rooted in eliminating waste (muda) and respecting people. He details principles like just-in-time production and jidoka (automation with human intelligence), translating to software as iterative development and automated testing.
He analyzes waste types: overproduction (unused features), waiting (delays in reviews), defects (bugs). Pezziardi proposes solutions: small batches, continuous integration, pair programming.
Pezziardi stresses cultural shifts: from hierarchical control to self-organization, where teams pull work and collaborate. He cites Octopus Microfinance as an example, where open-source contributions cultivate global knowledge sharing.
Methodologically, Pezziardi encourages daily practices: developers engaging marketers or accountants to understand needs, fostering empathy and efficiency.
Cultural and Organizational Shifts: Fostering Pride in Development
Pezziardi examines why developers feel undervalued: siloed roles limit impact, bureaucratic processes disconnect from users. He proposes redefining the developer as a cultivator of value, integrating business acumen with technical skill.
He analyzes geek culture’s potential: collaborative, innovative, yet often isolated. Pezziardi urges exemplifying values like humility, continuous learning, and cross-disciplinary dialogue.
Pezziardi’s narrative methodology—using humor, analogies (e.g., assembly lines)—engages to inspire change. Implications: enterprises adopting lean unlock productivity; developers gain fulfillment, transforming informatics from cost to asset.
Conclusion: Reclaiming Pride Through Convivial Informatics
Pezziardi concludes that technology outpaces culture; developers must lead by promoting convivial systems—tools empowering users, breaking silos. By embodying lean values, developers can reclaim pride, positioning themselves as pivotal to organizational success.
Links:
[DevoxxFR2012] Cloud Foundry manifest (manifest.yml)
applications:
– name: sample-java-app
memory: 512M
instances: 2
path: target/sample-java-app.war
services:
mysql-service:
type: mysql
## Reimagining Software Craftsmanship in the Cloud Era
The cloud era reshapes not only infrastructure but the software development lifecycle. Patrick likens modern software to the fashion industry: iPhone apps follow seasonal cycles—Angry Birds Space, Angry Birds Seasons—demanding rapid iteration and monetization within shrinking windows. A/B testing, a data-driven methodology, becomes essential for optimizing user engagement. In enterprises, “situational applications” proliferate—short-lived tools like the Devoxx website or a two-week Cloud Foundry tour prototype—contrasting with decade-long monoliths.
Kent Beck’s “Software G-forces” framework, presented a year prior, adapts agile practices to deployment cadence. Annual releases tolerate heavyweight processes; hourly deployments demand extreme lightness. Cloud’s primary business value, Patrick asserts, lies in liberating developers from infrastructure toil, enabling focus on domain logic and user value. He references Greg Vanback’s domain modeling talk, advocating domain-specific languages (DSLs) to encode business rules over plumbing.
Lock-in remains the cloud’s Achilles’ heel, evocatively termed the “Hotel California syndrome” by VMware CEO Paul Maritz: entry is easy, exit impossible. Cloud Foundry counters this through open-source neutrality, allowing code to run identically on-premises or across providers. Patrick’s transition from Google to VMware was motivated by this philosophy—empowering developers to own their destiny.
// Spring Boot on Cloud Foundry (conceptual)
@SpringBootApplication
public class DemoApplication {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args);
}
}
“`
Forecasting the Developer’s Future: Lessons and Imperatives
Patrick predicts software will increasingly resemble fashion, prioritizing design excellence and tool versatility. Java developers must transcend the “hammer complex”—viewing every problem as a nail for their familiar tool—and embrace polyglot programming to unlock novel solutions. Obsolete concepts like First Normal Form or Waterfall methodologies must be unlearned; agile practices, API design, A/B testing, and framework diversity must be mastered.
The fictional George’s redemption arc offers a blueprint. After months of unemployment in 2010, a Paris JUG meetup rekindles his passion. Surrounded by peers wielding Scala, Node.js, HTML5, and agile since 2007, he invests in an iPad, iPhone, and MacBook Pro. Joining the Cantine coworking space, he codes daily with unit tests, devours Reid Hoffman’s The Start-Up of You and Gerald Weinberg’s The Psychology of Computer Programming, and treats his career as a startup. Contributing to open-source, he pushes code via Git, Jenkins, and VMC. His mobile app scales to 10 million users on cloud infrastructure he never manages, eventually acquired (perhaps by Viadeo in France). Abandoning golf for samba in Brazil, George embodies reinvention.
Conclusion: Authoring the Developer’s Comedy
Technological revolutions, like cinema’s sound era, compel adaptation or obsolescence. Developers must shed complexity worship, embrace platform abstraction, and center users through agile, data-driven practices. Open-source PaaS like Cloud Foundry democratizes innovation, mitigating lock-in and accelerating community contributions. Patrick’s narrative—part memoir, part manifesto—urges developers to engage communities, master emerging paradigms, and view their careers as entrepreneurial ventures. In this American comedy, the developer’s story ends triumphantly, provided they seize authorship of their destiny.