You don’t have to read it, but you just might learn something.
Leading Thought
Prime
Thoughts About Mob Programming From a Manager’s Perspective
If you’ve tried mob programming you may have opinions about it – good or bad – and, chances are, your managers and leaders do, too. Is it for everyone and every situation? No. But for the right teams is it extremely effective? Yes.
This is a great post that almost reads like an advertisement for New Relic recruiting. The author, Rebecca Campbell is a SVP of Engineering (now at Mural) and does a great job of explaining how mobbing is approached at New Relic. She talks about mobbing practices in general and where it shines and doesn’t. She also addresses important concerns like introverts and how they may fit into the puzzle. The most important part of the process? Teams self-organize to work the way that is best for them and the problem.
If you have been mob-curious, or given it a try and found it lacking, give this a read to see if there are things that will help you succeed. If you’ve had a good experience with mobbing, give it a read to find out if there are ways you may improve the experience for everyone And, finally, if you are a leader of software engineers, give it a look to see why you should be encouraging mobbing in your team(s).
Also, most of our teams have a standing rule that if you find yourself in a mob session and you’re not engaged—or, worse, not actually needed—you should feel free to spend your time on other work. This helps ensure that everyone’s time is respected and engineers don’t feel depleted by ineffective or inefficient mobbing sessions. Maintaining a healthy mob is critical to its success.
Where are all the laid-off software developers going?
Interesting analysis here around where a quarter of a million plus software devs are working following the massive layoffs occurring at the big tech companies. While some are ending up back in Big Tech, quite a few others seem to be looking for smaller companies or starting up their own.
Even in this climate, developers aren’t getting desperate. According to Karat, a 61% majority are staying at the same level when targeting new roles and 27% of candidates are looking to level up to senior job titles by moving to smaller organizations. That leaves just 12% who are willing to interview at lower rungs on the career ladder than before.
We’re now finding out the damaging results of the mandated return to the office–and it’s worse than we thought
Interesting piece here on how flexible work is now at the top of considerations for workers, and companies mandating return to office are finding it harder to compete for talent (the author relies on three different reports to support the claims).
In the SHED survey, the gravity of this situation becomes more evident. The survey equates the displeasure of shifting from a flexible work model to a traditional one to that of experiencing a 2% to 3% pay cut.
In Pursuit of a Superior Server: Oxide Computer Ships Its First Rack
Not sure what the cost is here, but this seems pretty amazing. Rather than relying on AMI’s traditional BIOS, off-the-shelf hardware and software, among other things, Oxide has created a fully-integrated server rack. This doesn’t just meant the traditional rack components, but the software as well, built together to achieve high performance.
As the company notes, the large server users like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook all tend toward similar, propietary schemes to achieve hyperscaling. Unless you are in this class, then this is generally out of reach, until now. Oxide means to change that, and are open sourcing it as well.
If you are in The Cloud and are considering a move back on-premises (or into a co-location data center), then Oxide may be worth taking a look at. Even if not, this is an interesting look at what they are doing.
And that same month, looking back over 15 years as a customer of server vendors, Oxide founding engineer Joshua Clulow pinpointed a key problem. “The software and the hardware are generally not co‑designed — the flexibility inherent in the off-the-shelf approach leads to a lot of incidental complexity…”
Scientists discover ‘variant-proof’ antibodies that can neutralize every strain of Covid - as virus rates tick up across US amid ‘late summer wave’
While the mortality rates for the latest strains ov Covid are much lower than when the pandemic started, the unfortunate reality is that the virus continues to mutate (as one would expect) and continue to cause problems. Similarly expected, research has continued into how to effectively control, if not stop the virus, and new discoveries look extremely promising.
Researchers have uncovered six new antibodies in the blood of patients who had survived Covid-19’s early ancestor, the SARS virus of 2002, who then also received a vaccination against the coronavirus in more recent years.
New report from UNAIDS shows that AIDS can be ended by 2030 and outlines the path to get there
If you are old enough to have been around when the AIDS crisis started, then you probably remember how impossible it looked that HIV could be defeated. Around 1987, effective treatments were found to help increase the lifespans of those living with the virus, something that seemed impossible. Fast forward 40ish years and we now have treatments so effective that viral loads are near enough to zero as to almost be cures. N
Thanks to the investment into research to combat AIDS, fueled by a multinational investment, it looks like there is a possibility that within 50 years of the start of the AIDS pandemic, we could eliminate one of the most deadly viruses we’ve encountered. The key is ensuring that we continue investing in, and educating, those most at risk and putting aside politics in the name of understanding the science that has brought us here. Given the climate right now, it is a good question whether we as a global society will be able to achieve this goal. This is definitely worth a read for everyone, if only to refresh our memories of what we can do when we focus and work together.
The report highlights that HIV responses succeed when they are anchored in strong political leadership. This means following the data, science, and evidence; tackling the inequalities holding back progress; enabling communities and civil society organizations in their vital role in the response; and ensuring sufficient and sustainable funding.
Coming Soon
Beer City Code
(August 4 - 5, 2023 | Grand Rapids, MI)
Definitely check this dev conference out – lots of names you may recognize: Mike Eaton, Cassandra Faris, Chris DeMars, and Rocket Homes own Chris Woodruff!
Black Hat USA
(August 5-10, 2023 | Mandalay Bay / Las Vegas + Virtual)
Infosec your thing? Then check out this conference in Vegas. There are two day classes available, as well as briefings demos, and more.
Black Is Tech 2023
(In-Person (Atlanta, GA): August 9 – 11, 2023 | Virtual: August 7 – 9, 2023)
The Black Is Tech Conference is a platform that connects Black tech professionals, students and entrepreneurs and provides access to resources for growth and development for these groups.
Humble Bundles
Cloud Ops and Development Book Bundle
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting Covenant House – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $18 you get 36 titles, including:
- Kubernetes for Jobseekers
- Linux Server Cookbook
- IT Infrastructure Automation Using Ansible
- DevOps & Containers Security
- Developing Cloud Native Applications in Azure using .NET Core
- And more!
DevOps 2023
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting Code for America – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $25 you get 15 titles, including:
- 97 Things Every Information Security Professional Should Know
- Modern System Administration
- Implementing Service Level Objectives
- Learning Helm
- Design Patterns for Cloud Native Applications
- And more!
CompTIA and Cisco Cert Prep Book Bundle
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting charity:water – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $25 you get 12 titles, including:
- CompTIA Network+ N10-008 Certification Guide - Second Edition
- Cisco Certified CyberOps Associate 200-201 Certification Guide
- CompTIA Server+ Certification Guide
- CompTIA Security+ Certification Guide
- CompTIA Linux+ Certification Guide
- And more!
CyberSecurity: Zero to Hero Software Bundle
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting World Wildlife Fund – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $25 you get 22 items, including:
- The Beginners 2023 Cyber Security Awareness Training Course
- Writing Secure Code in ASP.NET
- The Complete Ethical Hacking Course
- Software Security Testing
- Pentesting Fundamentals for Beginners
- And more!
AI
Sen. Casey rolls out bills to protect workers from AI surveillance and ‘robot bosses’
This is a very high level overview of two bills introduced to protect workers: the No Robot Bosses Act and the Exploitative Workplace Surveillance and Technologies Task Force Act. Definitely worth a read to understand what each is trying to solve and why, especially for employers.
The first bill, the No Robot Bosses Act, would bar employers from relying solely on automated systems like algorithms and machine learning tools in making employment decisions. It would also require employers to train their employees on how to use such systems and ensure employers disclose when they are using them.
Generative AI Policy Must Be Precise, Careful, and Practical: How to Cut Through the Hype and Spot Potential Risks in New Legislation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is one of those organizations that people either love or hate, similar to the ACLU, and for the same reasons: they may fight for things that are distasteful in the name of the greater good. Generative AI is one of those hot-button topics right now that EFF has a stake in, so depending on where you fall in the span of the goodness or badness of the tech, you may or may not love EFF right now.
That said, this is a well-reasoned post about some of the pitfalls of legislating too quickly on Generative AI. I think most people want to see creators such as artists or writers enjoy the fruits of their labors without the threat of AI creating work derivative of the data its trained on and (potentially) eliminating them from the equation. But how do we do that effectively? Are there existing laws in place that may be strengthened? Do we need new legislation? These are complicated questions that bear exploration. Definitely worth a read whether you are directly involved with AI tech or not.
…will the regulation reinforce existing power dynamics and oligopolies? When Big Tech asks to be regulated, we must ask if those regulations might effectively cement Big Tech’s own power. For example, we’ve seen multiple proposals that would allow regulators to review and license AI models, programs, and services. Government licensing is the kind of burden that big players can easily meet; smaller competitors and nonprofits, not so much. Indeed, it could be prohibitive for independent open-source developers.
DE&I
Data Reveals An Infuriating Reason Women Over 40 Are Held Back At Work
Age can be a drawback in many professions, especially tech, but this is especially so for women. I’ll let the article give the details of why this is the case but I think, on it’s face, most people – especially men – know this is true.
While it’s a short read, there are a lot of important points that are simply accepted behaviors. As always, when being presented with explicit examples and the effect the behaviors have, it can set you back a bit. This is an especially important read for men to help make sure we are not continuing to perpetuate harmful myths and practices.
“As they do grow older and more mature in their careers, [women] lose some of the fear of speaking their mind. And certain men don’t like that,” Diehl said. “Men will allow women into the workplace … and will be supportive of women in the workplace to the extent that women are compliant, supportive of the men, and they don’t push back.”
Engineering
Code Red: The Business Impact of Code Quality – A Quantitative Study of 39 Proprietary Production Codebases
At the end of November, 2022, I included an article from the CodeScene website entitled Code quality: measuring the business impact of unhealthy code. That post has been formalized as a research paper, including much more information about how the authors gathered their information. While their is still a bit of salesy-ness to it (the study justifies using Code Scene’s proprietary Code Health metric), the information is still worth considering. Especially worth the read for senior technology and business leaders.
- Efficient software development is a competitive advantage, enabling companies to maintain a short time-to-market with a mature product experience.
- Research shows that 23-42% of developer’s time is wasted due to technical debt and bad code.
- Code quality is not visible to non-tech stakeholders and possible gains in code quality are hard to translate into business value.
- High quality code has 15 times fewer bugs, twice the development speed, and 9 times lower uncertainty in completion time.’
Infosec
Sleuthcon 2023
While it may be complete, Sleuthcon has made recordings of the speakers available on YouTube (scroll down for embeded vids). Check it out – may be that this is something to consider for 2024 if you are in the area!
This new conference, brought to you by the folks who brought you CYBERWARCON, is designed to highlight the work done by cybersecurity practitioners, journalists, academics, law enforcement officials, and more to identify and explore cybercrime and financially-motivated cyber threats.
UI/|UX
New Viewport Units
(Re)Learning about front-end dev/design is definitely a challenge with all the new frameworks, but the evolution of CSS never disappoints. I remember trying to do relatively simple designs once upon a time, like doing a simple 3 column layout with header and footer, while trying to get everything to look right on IE and Netscape. Getting the right heighths and widths was always fun, and that was n just two browsers with a pretty standard 4:3 screen.
Given the variety of screen sizes, browsers, and formats (e.g., address bar on the top or bottom, static or disappearing, etc.) and I can’t imagine making any of it work consistently without all the new tech. The truly amazing thing is that there’s still more to do to make things easier. Enter the new view port units svh, lvh, and dvh.
This is another great write-up from Ahmad Shadeed taking an in-depth look at what these new units do for you compared to the existing viewport units, as well as some things to avoid. If you work in front-end and haven’t come across this yet, you need to give it a read.