Practical insights on platform engineering, developer experience, and building teams that ship. Each issue is written to be useful, actionable, and applicable. No filler, no promotions-only emails. Enter your email and sign up for free right now.
Weekly Reflection #21 - Katas and Software Architecture
|
Each week, I share one insight. One piece of wisdom. One question to reflect on. (and a little Lagniappe) InsightMartial artists have been practicing katas for centuries: solo forms, repeated until the movements become muscle memory. Dave Thomas brought the idea to code. Mark Richards and Neal Ford brought it to software architecture in Fundamentals of Software Architecture. What I love about katas is that they are disciplined play with a purpose. The engineers who run katas develop astute judgment. The org that makes space for katas gets better outcomes. WisdomIt is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
ReflectionDoes your team practice katas to sharpen their craft? Lagniappe
|
Weekly Reflections Newsletter
Practical insights on platform engineering, developer experience, and building teams that ship. Each issue is written to be useful, actionable, and applicable. No filler, no promotions-only emails. Enter your email and sign up for free right now.
Each week, I share one insight. One piece of wisdom. One question to reflect on. (and a little Lagniappe) Insight Every Sunday, I fill up the gas tank on our little Suzuki Vitara. I learned this from Tom Limoncelli in Time Management For System Administrators. It doesn't matter if it's a quarter empty or a quarter full. I just top it off. The ritual categorically removes a potential source of stress from my week, all from a simple little habit. Wisdom A schedule defends from chaos and whim....
Each week, I share one insight. One piece of wisdom. One question to reflect on. (and a little Lagniappe) Insight I have to come clean. I've been putting off one of the most-recommended books in our field for years: The Mythical Man-Month. I can't believe, after co-hosting Book Overflow for almost two years, we hadn't read this yet. Martin Fowler's recent post finally got me to take the plunge, and boy was I missing out! My favorite idea in the book is conceptual integrity. Conceptual...
Each week, I share one insight. One piece of wisdom. One question to reflect on. (and a little Lagniappe) Insight Tony Fadell tells a story in his book, Build, about his time at General Magic. The place was filled with brilliant people, but they had no shipping rhythm and no external pressures. Years passed and the work drifted, missing chances to prove it out with customers. He argues that the way to combat this is with "heartbeats and handcuffs". Heartbeats are an internal cadence....