file under misc.

I'm spending the week in a training class at work.  The training is for some commercial e-commerce software we will be using for future development.

I enjoy technology training classes.  When the technology is solid, it's a great opportunity for thinking about new problem domains or looking at old problems from new directions.  If the technology falls short, it serves as a cautionary tale or insight into a area where a competitve solution might be able to gain marketshare.

It always reminds me of this passage from the Tao of Programming:

There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as he entered, the man told the guard at the door:

``I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered.''

This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself.

When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, but nothing was to be found.

On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the guard saying: ``I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even better.'' So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail.

On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his curiosity no longer. ``Sir Thief,'' he said, ``I am so perplexed, I cannot live in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?''

The man smiled. ``I am stealing ideas,'' he said.

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Interesting article about a topic I've been discussing quite a bit lately: the notion of "DevOps".

http://somic.org/2010/03/02/the-rise-of-devops/

I'm a firm believer that everyone in IT should be a developer. For example, QA needs to be able to create test scripts, automate processes, and generate coverage reports. Ops needs to be able to develop scripts to automate monitoring, troubleshooting, provisioning, and capacity management.

One of the problems in enterprise IT is hiring people who don't have development skills because their job title isn't "developer" or "programmer". The ability to write software and automate processes needs to become the norm in IT if we're going to progress beyond silos of responsibility and truly work together as a team.

Being able to write software is a basic skill now and should be part of every job description. This transition is similar to the changeover from the "spreadsheet specialists" of 15-20 years ago who knew the intricacies of Lotus 1-2-3 or Microsoft Excel to the current day where everyone uses spreadsheets and word processors as part of their daily life.

IT always wants to work smarter, cheaper, and more consistently - these are the by-products of good software development efforts. It's time to spread those benefits across the organization.

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