shoulders of giants

SHOULDERSOF GIANTS

JON ROES

OVERVIEW•Problems

•Strategies for building things quickly

•My experiences

WE NEED TO TALK

Building software takes too long.And half the time it’s buggy.Or it doesn’t even solve the problem.

IT’S NOT JUST YOU, IT’S ME TOO•Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome

•“Unwillingness to value the work of others”

•Fear of the unknown

•Programming is fun

OUR SHAREDPROBLEMS•You are not a unique snowflake.

•You aren’t really interested in software, you are solving a problem

•Maybe you’re different because you’re wrong

CONFESSION

•I don’t always want to write code.

•Would you want me to spend more or less time shipping your project?

•Would I want to spend more or less time shipping my project?

•You don’t want me to write code either.

PHILOSOPHY•Why are humans so successful?

•What if we never wrote the same code twice?

•How can we push the state of the art further?

HISTORY•Math: Numbers -> Arithmetic -> Algebra -> Abstract Algebra

•Science: Galileo -> Brahe -> Kepler -> Newton

•The Avengers: Hulk beats Loki, Iron Man stops the missile, Black Widow deactivates portal

NEWTON

Good artists copy. Great artists steal.

ART

STRATEGIES

CLASSES OF PROBLEMS•Social networks

•Stores

•Blogs

•Chat/Forums

•Static

WHAT TO LOOK FOR•Necessity

•Level of match

•Exact match

•Kinda-sorta

•Properties

•Age

•Author

•License

•Recent Activity

THE UGLY•Getting cornered

•Picking something unmaintained

•Dependency hell

RISK MANAGEMENT•Start on a branch

•Make the smallest change you can first

•Set a timebox

WHEN BUILDING MAKES SENSE•You need a particular feature that would be at odds with the current philosophy.

•The existing maintainer won’t play nicely

•It really doesn’t exist

•You are the world’s foremost expert in the area

MY EXPERIENCES

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE•Missed opportunity

•Could have shipped faster

•Could have delivered more

•Could have had fewer bugs

E-COMMERCE SITE

•Went with Spree

•Could buy a product with a credit card on day one

•Immediately better: searching, filtering, product management, reporting

•Helped define categories/taxonomy

•Clean, easy to extend codebase

PUSH NOTIFICATIONS

•No familiarity with iOS push notifications

•Found a library called Grocer, used it

•Sending push notifications in a day

GET OUT THERE•Contribute to awesome projects

•Make them better

•If not, convince your boss to donate money