Virginia User Group Tour

This week, I’m embarking on a three city tour of Virginia sharing my ideas on the parallels between writing and software development. Below are links to the meeting details as well as the abstract and slide deck:

Does Your Code Tell A Story

Software developers are writers. Our medium is text. What can we learn about writing code by studying the principles of good story writing? Frequently in software development, we solve a problem, check in the code and release it. Unfortunately, this means we have released a first draft of the solution. One of the main lessons of writing workshops and classes is to write in small chunks and revise ruthlessly. By releasing our first drafts, we increase the maintenance cast of our application because it is harder to understand the initial intent of the solution. In this session, we will explore concepts from writing such as small assignments, bad first drafts, and telling the truth as they apply to the craft of software development.

View more presentations from Alan Stevens.

See y’all in The Commonwealth,

++Alan