#jedi_master

[jilldraws90]

Hey Jealousy Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn’t the jealous type. Yes, he was envious of Qui-Gon’s attention to Anakin all those years ago but he chalked it up to immaturity. It was rather ridiculous for a 25-year-old to be upset he was getting less attention than a literal child. No, he had grown too much for that kind of insecurity. In fact, other masters were jealous of him. Thabisa was such a gentle and obedient padawan. Some still look down on her due to her mother’s betrayal of the Jedi, but all agreed: they wished their padawans behaved half as well. Obi-Wan was grateful for that - at least compared to Anakin - training Thabisa was easy. However, he noticed things, such as how whenever Kit Fisto was around, Thabisa would change. She became talkative, excitable, and just plain adorable. She would expressively ramble on about their latest war story to the Nautolan. Kit would just laugh and cheer the little Horansi cub on, sharing his own stories once she had finished. Stories that Thabisa, in turn, would listen to with excited attentiveness. Obi-Wan knew Jedi and the younglings they would find and bring to the temple had special bonds. Plo Koon and Ahsoka certainly did. Why would Kit and Thabisa be any different? However, he wonder why. Why would Thabisa only save this playful, happy side of herself for Fisto? Why never for him, her Jedi master? Why did Kit sometimes know things about Obi-Wan’s padawan that he, himself, didn’t even realize? Why did her eyes never sparkle when she saw him, like they did when she saw the Nautolan? No matter, after all… Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn’t the jealous type. Star Wars copyright to LucasFilms and Disney, All rights reserved ArtWork copyright to jilldraws.com, All rights reserved

[365daysofclash]

[Humour] I already found harry 1 and harry 2 in the same global, now its jedi master and jedi_master https://t.co/6xkWoCKPpN https://t.co/WorVE5liCJ

[Humour] I already found harry 1 and harry 2 in the same global, now its jedi master and jedi_master https://t.co/6xkWoCKPpN pic.twitter.com/WorVE5liCJ

— 365 Clash Royale (@365daysofclash) November 5, 2018

[hammerproject]

I don’t wanna be a “developer” anymore

I was talking to a recruiter again today and I'm constantly finding it hard to differentiate myself. I don't want to be an "architect" because I find the perception is not one of delivery. I won't want to be a "senior dev" because I have so much more to add than that. What's in the middle? A "lead"? "tech lead"? "agile coach"? Maybe a "consultant"? Ugh! I'm happy to consult but I can't call myself a consultant! It's the driest, most dead word I can think of.

Yes, I'm trying to sell myself better but I think there is something bigger going on too.

So I'm watching @jason and @ryancarson talk about apprenticeships and it got me thinking- maybe I can define myself in terms of a "trade". Perhaps I'm actually a "tradie"?

I like this because most recently I've been thinking a lot about the principles of #leanstartup and #agile and applying them in my day job. I'm also in a particularly interesting scenario where I'm poised to pitch this notion that my particular project isn't that complicated (by design) and should be able to be developed and maintained by someone with significantly less experience than me. I'm so confident, that I think I could take someone who is not technically a "full stack" developer and (with pairing and other XP techniques) turn them into a highly successful owner of this product, effectively doing myself out of a job. In fact, I could do it many times over and build a whole team like that. It kinda sounds like what you might do with an apprentice.

Ok, so where am I on this tradesperson continuum? I'm the master now. Yes that sounds arrogant and I don't think I'm going to add that word to my LinkedIn, but that's technically what it's called. I've always romanticised my work around this idea of being a craftsperson or a software 'practitioner' rather than 'developer' or 'engineer'. I'll admit that yes, I do 'develop' things. I do 'engineer' things too. But I prefer 'make' and 'design' (certainly not 'architect' or it's devil past tense) and just.. 'build'. I build things with my hands. That's what a craftsperson does. Actually, I love building things with my hands. If you follow the Wikipedia rabbit hole you might find yourself, like me, at the word Artisan.

Artisan sounds so regal. (here I go being arrogant again..) It's true though: I really find building software to be like an art form. It's like creating music; or a sculpture on the beach. It's creative, and organic. Now lately, my creativity sits behind a heavy wall of pragmatic decision making day to day. But I also believe in constraints forcing innovation too. So I can still practise art by not extracting that code into a generic method! Can I use these words instead of "developer"? What am I trying to say about myself?

The master in the artisan or master craftsman (or Jedi) context is defined by her leadership capacity. It's not so much about how they are experienced, or very knowledgeable or simply extremely skilled. The title is entirely coupled to the notion of training others. It surfaces this idea that there are many elements of a great practitioner that can not simply be transferred by reading, or even doing. The key is the shared experience: it's the "doing with the master". The master is key - she needs to be there to observe and guide and encourage. This is why code reviews (the Pull Request kind, not the automated code quality tool in your CI stack kind) are so powerful. It's that other pair of eyes looking over your work - not as a humiliating exercise, but the group ownership one - we're all in this together and I checked my ego at the door this morning so please, tell me what you think I can improve. Once I learned how to do this, I was that much closer to mastering my craft.

So I could rant more on this but it's late and I think I'll go and play with my LinkedIn subtitle now.

Let me leave you with this-

I don't Computer Science at work. I largely build line of business applications. I craft (by hand) simple solutions to painful problems using the principals of #lean and Small Batches in order to learn where we all need to go quickly while minimising waste. As I'm doing this, I show those around me how to do it too. We all grow and learn together. I love being a software artisan. I'm not a developer any more.

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Thanks Andrew and Dennis for reading drafts.