Oh Grow Up!!

1
Oh Grow Up!! Going From Kiddie Scripter to
Software Architect Simon Horwith CTO, eTRILOGY ltd
2
Overview

• Introduction
• Who am I?
• Who are you?
• Us and Them
• The us and them attitude developers have
  towards
• So called gurus and themselves
• ColdFusion and other programming languages
• Additional Factors
• Control your environment!
• Office rules and processes
• Bridging the gap between Us and Them
• Change your thinking
• Communicate with your team
• Control your environment
• Practical coding techniques/suggestions
• The Bottom Line
• Summary some simple rules to remember

3
Introduction

• Who am I?
• Member of Team Macromedia
• Macromedia Certified Instructor
• Architect
• Developer (ColdFusion, Flash, Flex, etc.)
• Who are you?
• ColdFusion Developer
• Project Manager interested in raising the skill
  level of the developers who you manage

4
Us and Them

• Many ColdFusion Developers
• Have a preconceived notion that certain other
  developers are gurus and that there are
  mysterious differences between themselves and
  these people
• Develop their skills based on exposure to new
  techniques as-needed
• Develop their existing skills to a certain point
  and no further
• Believe that ColdFusion is not in the same league
  as other programming languages
• WHY?

5
Us and Them Demystified

• The notion that there are mysterious differences
  between so-called gurus and everyone else is
  due largely in part to the assumptions that it is
  either their natural code-writing ability or
  their vast experience that makes them so good
• What really makes the experts different
• Patience
• Research
• Experimentation
• Passion
• Experience
• Experience is the least important difference

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Us and Them Demystified Patience

• Top-quality developers
• Appreciate taking time to think and plan before
  they write a single line of code
• Assess the situation before action when an error
  occurs
• Know that immediate results are not the first
  priority. Flexibility and ease of maintenance
  are the best qualities of any code base
• Know when to stop banging their head against the
  wall and walk away from a bad situation

7
Us and Them Demystified - Research

• Top-quality developers
• Try to solve problems themselves by doing
  research
• Know where to look for answers to problems
  (Macromedia.com, Google, list servers, etc.)
• Arent afraid to learn new technologies and/or
  skills
• Question everything, including their own code.
  They look for ways to improve their own code.

8
Us and Them Demystified - Experimentation

• Top-quality developers
• Recognize that it is often quicker to write a
  quick test case using simple data than it is to
  ponder, research, etc.
• Experiment with
• different methods of organizing code
• different methods of passing and storing data
• new functionality as soon as it becomes available
• alternatives (sometimes including other
  technologies)

9
Us and Them Demystified - Passion

• Top-quality developers
• are passionate about what they do
• strive to do better
• It is this passion that drives them, more than
  anything, to patiently look for solutions,
  research solutions, and experiment.

10
Us and Them Demystified Experience

• Top-quality developers do generally have a lot of
  experience.
• This is not a prerequisite!
• Though its not a prerequisite, top-quality
  developers learn from their mistakes and from the
  mistakes of others. Theyve seen and made a lot
  of mistakes along the way, which is why they
  appear to know so much now.

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Us and Them Demystified ColdFusion is not
just for kiddie scripters

• Top-quality developers
• Have respect for themselves as professionals and
  for the power of their platform (ColdFusion)
• Approach developing applications with ColdFusion
  the same way that a Java, C, or any other
  developer would approach developing software in
  their respective environment.
• Use the terms ColdFusion Development and
  Software Development interchangeably
• Appreciate that though ColdFusion makes it easier
  to achieve results, it also makes it easier to
  write bad code. There is no excuse for writing
  bad code. They also appreciate that because
  common tasks are made trivial in CFML, they can
  spend more time concentrating on more complex
  tasks and business requirements. After all
  this is where the true power of ColdFusion rests.

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Us and Them Revisited

• We said before that many to most ColdFusion
  Developers
• Have a preconceived notion that certain other
  developers are gurus and that there are
  mysterious differences between themselves and
  these people
• Develop their skills based on exposure to new
  techniques as-needed
• Develop their existing skills to a certain point
  and no further
• Believe that ColdFusion is not in the league of
  other programming languages
• How do the traits frequently displayed by gurus
  (patience, research, experimentation, passion,
  and experience) and the respect they have for the
  platform make them different?

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Additional Factors

• The environment in which you work has a huge
  impact on your performance
• Many top developers find that listening to
  certain music or styles of music aids them in
  their code-writing
• Top developers often work in an environment that
  has well-defined business and development
  processes (specification writing, data and
  application modelling, code reviews,
  documentation, Q/A, etc.). These processes not
  only keep things within a company consistent, but
  help developers to learn and perform better and
  more deliberately and consistently
• In addition to music, the rest of a developers
  surroundings also impact on performance.
• Community activities encourage learning and
  interest. Most top developers attend and/or
  present at CFUGs, conferences, etc.

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Bridging the gap between Us and Them

• So where do you go from here to begin down the
  path of becoming one of them?
• Change your thinking
• Communicate with your team
• Control your environment
• Remember some practical coding techniques/suggesti
  ons

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Bridging the gap between Us and Them - thought

• The first step in changing the way you think
  about and approach development is to meditate on
  the US and Them characteristics already
  described and to begin taking more time before
  you code
• Take time to research what other people are
  doing/have done with ColdFusion and learn to
  fully appreciate its potential

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Bridging the gap between Us and Them -
communicate

• If your company doesnt have formal processes for
  documentation, specification writing, code
  reviews, and/or data and application modelling
  (ER Diagrams and/or UML), talk with your project
  managers, boss(es), and/or employees about
  putting processes in place
• If you arent already doing so, begin holding
  regular internal training seminars and/or attend
  formal training, CFUG meetings, and other
  conferences. Get your company involved in these
  activities.

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Bridging the gap between Us and Them -
environment

• Experiment with listening to different styles of
  music while you work see what, if anything,
  works for you
• Make your work environment ideal for doing work
  and play.
• Hint if you had an unlimited budget to purchase
  one piece of office equipment, what high-price
  item would you buy? Most developers immediately
  say theyd buy a PC or laptop. Id buy a chair
  the most fantastic, comfortable chair that money
  can buy. Thats the one piece of office
  equipment you shouldnt try to save money on.

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Bridging the gap between Us and Them - code

• While there are no 100 guaranteed rules for
  development that apply to every situation, there
  are a few coding rules that you should keep in
  mind
• Never connect with an external resource,
  especially for the same data, more than is
  absolutely necessary
• Avoid looping when you can
• Do some design pattern research MVC, façade,
  etc. and think about how you might use them
• Write code in as reusable and flexible a manner
  as possible 80 of your code should be inside
  of CFCs and Custom Tags
• Comment, comment, indent, and comment
• Practice writing recursive code its extremely
  powerful.
• Recognize that recursion is not only extremely
  powerful but extremely dangerous
• Remember that sometimes its faster to run two
  small blocks of code rather than one big one
  (this is true for SQL as well).
• Think about performance optimisation last
  achieve it through server configuration, code
  reuse, and taking advantage of server memory
• Look for ways to rewrite your code and others in
  a more optimal way

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Bottom Line(s) a few Golden Rules to remember

• Never spend more than 10 or 15 minutes on
  anything!
• Dont be afraid to step away from a problem or,
  God forbid, ask for help.
• Never be afraid to make mistakes learn by
  doing.
• There are two traits that ALL top developers have
  in common and that you must also develop
• they use common sense when assessing problems and
  devising solutions!
• They are confident!
• Question all things. This not only includes your
  own code and other peoples code, but best
  practices in general. Youd be surprised how
  many best practices are actually poor practices
  under the right conditions.
• If youre not having fun, why are you doing it?
• Make work fun!

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End

• Thank You
• Questions/comments may be sent to
  simon_at_horwith.com