Red Squirrel Reflections Dave Hoover explores the psychology of software development

The final paragraph of Extreme Programming Explored turned up this gem in response to the question, Where is XP going?

"Search for underlying values. The XP community has been exploring whether there are underlying principles that can inform other useful methods."

This is exactly what I believe narrative therapy can facilitate. It was very affirming to see Bill Wake explicitly address this search in his book.

Posted by Dave [Link]

Almost finished with Extreme Programming Explored. System Metaphor has been the most interesting topic thus far. Thinking about finding a helpful metaphor to talk about a system reminded me of Narrative Therapy's externalization. This quote from Explored, in particular, is inspiring me to dive back into narrative therpay literature in search of synergies:

"Naming something helps give you power over it."

It is just as I first suspected, the more I read about agile software development, the more overlap I find with narrative therapy.

Posted by Dave [Link]

I sat down with one of the project managers at work yesterday to discuss Extreme Programming. He explained to me that he and another manager had already presented XP to upper management and it had been shot down. He began asking me a few questions and I ended up talking to him about the Planning Game and Test-Driven Development. He then asked me if I would consider giving an XP presentation to upper management.

I'm very excited, but also wary of the fact that I have very little experience with XP. Regardless of the outcome of the presentation, I know I will walk away with a far deeper understanding of XP.

Yesterday afternoon I started reading Extreme Programming Explored...

Posted by Dave [Link]

I kept falling asleep on the train yesterday. The 4am wake-up still needs some getting used to, I suppose. I'm getting excited about my J2EE projects as I prepare for them. I've been downloading everything I need to develop KMAR on my PowerBook: PostgreSQL, CVS, JBoss with Tomcat, Struts, Ant. I am going to learn a lot in the next six months.

Posted by Dave [Link]

I took a break from The Secrets of Consulting to read Kent Beck and Martin Fowler's Planning Extreme Programming. It's a smallish book that I need to read quickly as two new projects loom on the horizon. Both involve taking outdated software and rebuilding it as a J2EE web application. In both I will be the project lead, working closely with the customer (hence the need to get a better handle on the Planning Game). One of them is for my full-time job, one of them is for Red Squirrel (KMAR).

My PowerBook arrived. I can't say enough about it. It's beautiful. The screen resolution is better than anything I've ever seen. I watched some scenes from The Matrix: incredible. I connected to my DSL by simply plugging in the ethernet cable and filling in a few fields for the PPPoE connection. This is something my Windows box required a CD from Ameritech to do and a dialog box anytime I want to connect. I installed both Ruby and Perl in about 5 minutes and was feeling at home with Unix, but a home that was easier and friendlier than I've ever experienced. I'll never go back to Windows.

Posted by Dave [Link]

Once again I feel as though I am being swept down a river, able to swim a little this way, a little that way, but unable to resist the frothy current. I found myself at the Evanston Family Therapy Center web site yesterday. I filled out a form to join their mailing list, commenting about my ongoing interest in narrative therapy and my current interest in software development. Gene Combs, co-author of Narrative Therapy: The Social Construction of Preferred Realities, emailed me back a few hours later, expressing interest in hearing my ideas about narrative therapy and software development teams. If he can get through my long-winded response I hope to be able to develop an ongoing collaboration with him.

Just as I was wrapping up my email to Gene, I got a call from Mike regarding the KMAR project. He asked me to put together a prototype so that he and Ryan can get a glimpse of a web-based KMAR. The prototype will generate some significant revenue, so I went ahead and ordered a PowerBook. I was a happy camper.

My reading during both commutes yesterday reaffirmed that Jerry Weinberg is my favorite author. When reading his books, I often find myself in the dilemma of wanting to underline too much and write down too many of his quotes. There is so much everyday wisdom, some of it overlapping from book-to-book, which helps me see his ideas from slightly different angles.

My favorite quote from yesterday's reading:

"The chances of solving a problem decline the closer you get to finding out who was the cause of the problem."

This quote, to me, reflects a philoshophy that I learned in my studies on narrative therapy. What is more worthy of our time together? Finding some entity on which to place blame? Or finding a more helpful way of approaching this problem?

Posted by Dave [Link]

I read the first few chapters of The Secrets of Consulting today. It's good to be reading Weinberg again. His style is very different from most of the other books I have read in the last year; the variety is good. The foreword of the book was written by the renowned family therapist, Virginia Satir. I have always enjoyed reading Satir, though I didn't focus on her in graduate school. Her influence on Weinberg does not inspire me to read more Satir, but to read more about narrative therapy. I want to see how narrative therapy can influence my approach to software development, just as Satir influenced Weinberg.

A fitting quote from chapter 3 for yesterday's tragic anniversary:

"Each of us, after all, is the direct descendant of innumerable unbroken lines of survivors."

Posted by Dave [Link]

I met with Roman today for the first official meeting of the Chicago Lunchtime Agile Study Group. It was great. We both seem to share a common passion for reading and learning, and not just about specific technologies, but about the methodologies and philosophies that influence software development. It was a great meeting. I invited other ChAD members to attend next Tuesday. Even if it just stays Roman and I, I know I will learn a ton.

I finished The Social Construction of Reality on the train this afternoon. The final paragraph was excellent:

"Man is biologically predestined to construct and inhabit a world with others. This world becomes for him the dominant and definitive reality. Its limits are set by nature, but once constructed, this world acts back upon nature. In the dialectic between nature and the socially constructed world the human organism itself is transformed. In this same dialectic man produces reality and thereby produces himself."

I need to meditate on these ideas. They make so much sense in my head, but I have an incredibly hard time distilling them into explanations or discussions with other people.

Posted by Dave [Link]

Another impactful quote from The Social Construction of Reality:

"An individual who wants to become an accomplished musician must immerse himself in his subject to a degree quite unnecessary for an individual learning to be an engineer. Engineering education can take place effectively through formal, highly rational, emotionally neutral processes. Musical education, on the other hand, typically involves much higher identification with a maestro and a much more profound immersion in musical reality. This difference comes from the intrinsic differences between engineering and musical knowledge, and between the ways of life in which these two bodies of knowledge are practically applied."

This reminds me of Pete McBreen's Software Craftsmanship. In my brief exposure to software development, I relate more strongly to the musical training above than the engineering. Perhaps this is because I am more of an artistic person, or perhaps it is because software development is more of an art.

The quote also validates two impulses I have had since the day I started programming: to immerse myself in software development literature and a constant striving to work under a "maestro".

Posted by Dave [Link]

I am almost finished with The Social Construction of Reality. It has stirred up a lot of what I learned in graduate school, and for me it is shedding some new light on the thinking behind narrative therapy.

I was struck by a quote a few days ago. It made me think of The Matrix, and not just because it includes that word:

"The symbolic universe is conceived of as the matrix of all socially objectivated and subjectively real meanings; the entire historic society and the entire biography of the individual are seen as events taking place within this universe."

The notion that the world that I live in is a subjective construction continually reminds me of the possibilities for change in any situation. I still have much to learn about how to take this viewpoint and apply it in such a way that could purposely alter the small corner of society with which I interact. I suppose narrative therapy has much to say about this.

I need to continue to mix these sort of philosophical/sociological/psychological books into my software development studies. This mix seems be the niche I am carving for myself.

Posted by Dave [Link]

I've been reading some interesting things lately. I setup this blog so that I could have a place to write down my thoughts. More to come...

Posted by Dave [Link]

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