Hey guys, and welcome to the show for today's guest.
I have whose pater he is the first certified calling trainer
in the Netherlands, and was one of the first certified Scala
trainers here as well. On top of that, he is a seasoned
engineer, who has enormous experience in building and
growing engineering, cultures and loves the knowledge sharing
aspect of the job as well. I had a lot of fun talking to
him and I think you'll like it too.
Welcome to Beyond coding, a dive into the world of successful
people in. IIT from your sponsors Z Bia,
creating digital leaders, here's your host, Patrick akhil.
So it was first of all. Welcome.
Nice to have you here as our first guest, and let's get right
into it. I guess.
So, I do have a bit into your background and I saw that
besides software engineering, which is what you're doing right
now. You've also done scrum
mastership, and you've also done more architectural stuff.
So how did that come to be? For example, why did you move
away from more of the developer side and start doing stuff
outside of just Main? That meant more into the the
people management or people skills kind of thing.
Okay, cool. It did a nice question.
Also, thank you for having me here.
Personally, I have quite a versatile background, so I want
you to I'm from Switzerland where I study economics, I
didn't really study it's--or, learned it all on the jobs and
that's themself main self-made. Men in that regard.
Which kind of makes it evident that I'm not really only doing
this particular thing. Also in terms of personality I
do not only software development also like for instance to draw
just also be the there's a bit of artistic line in the in my
personality and what I actually like most of all is interaction
with humans or at least what we can achieve when we have
effective interactions with humans and Technology.
Of course, is a nice means to create great stuff, but in that
sense I'm not really a main focus on technology.
Even though I really love it. Yeah.
But it's more actually. All the all the different
aspects around it. Cool.
That's very cool. I mean I'm kind of the same I
guess. I love the the interaction that
you get as a developer as well but then how is the working from
home been for you so far? I mean you're out of the the
office probably a lot less colleague interaction than than
two years ago for you. That's an interesting one.
My experience is that I got even more effective interactions than
before. That's a nice.
That's a yeah. I also something I would never
expected by having the screen. I realized that you can listen
way more carefully to the other person, then when you are
distracted in office, very lot of noise around you.
So once you really have talked to you one another then you
mainly Focus only on The Voice and by doing so you yeah you
really listen to the information.
Someone is bringing over a nice, that's 41.
And what we also did is we made sure that we still have some
natural collaboration. Instead, we just opened our
teams and then from 10:00 on everybody else, just teams open,
maybe microphone muted or not and whenever questions you can
ask you to the team. Yeah.
And also then probably people are first of all, more in their
own bubble, probably. Also bit more effective in what
they do, but I still can have quite easily interaction by just
calling to the to the screen. And then someone will answer and
this combination resulted in a very first of all effective
interaction, but also, In trouble because you still have
your private time to focus on things you want to can just mute
because he normal often can really muted when people want
something. If you then then you have to
answer whereas you still can address people quite quickly.
Yeah. Nice.
I mean at my job we don't do the open Channel perspective, we
have before stand up. You can actually walk in and
it's like grabbing a coffee so people can join up and they can
talk about whatever and then when the real stuff begins, we
talked about that mainly okay. But yeah I mean I love the
one-on-one Fractions that you can have now.
But one of the downsides is that I mean, I can't just walk up to
someone and be like, hey you want to you want to pair up on
this problem that we're having. It's a bit of a bigger step.
I've noticed then doing it when you're actually physically next
to each other. I guess that's correct.
Yeah. As long as seen the team, it's
quite easy because you are quite cozy.
Fall very, very Cannon where you know, each other and where these
lines that interpersonal lines are quite frequently.
A you used stepping towards other people is then a biggest
wrestle, that's correct. Yeah, and I love what you said
about like still having the focus element because I've
noticed that as well. I feel like I'm more effective
now, working from home at some aspects of my job, then others,
when I was at the office. Yeah, which is pretty cool.
Was the open Channel? A thing that you instantly were
like? All right, let's do this.
Or did you try out other things? As well to see what will work
and what would not work. And in terms For knowledge.
I always think it's very important to kind of unleash the
power of the team itself so also what the team think is effective
and also try things out play with it.
What we realized specially Beginnings is when you just
won't hold a behind your own screen and only if interacts if
you want to. Yeah which have also threat old
to really do the interaction. We realize that this is not
effective. So we quite quickly said, okay
let's try this out. And from right to start, it was
very it was a very good solution to still get better in touch and
get. Also the feel that you do things
together and just instead of just be on your own early, with
your, a levels of side of the job is definitely.
I mean, one of the beneficial size of the job as well.
Yeah. What I've noticed in in kind of
a development culture, is that? I mean it's competitive but it's
competitive to a certain degree if I learn something new,
usually people love to share things, they'd love to share
with I've learned in the love the show, what they've learned
as well or do it together. I mean we exceed be a we have
knowledge exchange events, stuff like that which we definitely
love. I mean do you have that on the
job as well? Kind of a structured way of of
we called them Tech meetings kind of or Tech Tuesday.
We would you sit apart with the team and go through a bunch of
stuff that either we did or what we found out.
And just talked about that. It's kind of a tech demo, but
more of a technical side. Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know if you do something similar at your job as
well. Add a quite internet,
interesting aspect of the Sam. And I have right now is that we
had to create a whole development team, right from the
start, so kind of Greenfield team building.
In that sense, one of the key goals.
We also had this that we needed to implement some engineering
culture. Yeah, I'm part of a new culture,
of course, is that you share knowledge?
Sure. So, Sharing knowledge has a very
important aspect of what we are doing and what we also Foster to
a very large extent. So for instance what we do we
are regularly some knowledge exchange about certain topics so
for instance if someone has worked on a particular piece or
a few people which is important for the group to know then we
organize some knowledge exchange / Sprint of rinsing three or
four hours nice and then someone also gets time Prepare that
maybe do some small assignments, that you will get a hands-on
experience. Yeah, that's a one-way thing, we
do. What we also do is, when the
story's finished, we have some sort of knowledge exchange task.
So, for the particular story, you tell the team quite quite
briefly, briefly in condensed, in about 10 minutes, what you've
done now, instead, you get an idea of where things have
changed, what we have done. Yeah, so these are more dead.
Outer aspects of sharing knowledge.
What I purchased think is even more important is the knowledge
culture. Yeah and you used, you just said
there is some sort of competitive aspect in our work.
I personally think that the less you let this competitive part
Prevail, the better it is for your team, so I agree actually.
Yeah and I consciously the team's I'm in and older I get in
that sense. The more consciously I try to
fall stir some sort of collaboration collaborative
sphere, where people really feel at ease and dare to ask.
I think it's more like the the asking part to dare to say, I
don't know yet and without them being being punished that, so
you don't know that. Maybe you're a senior, we are
supposed that, you know, that especially when you get more
senior, this, this fella fallacy comes more dangerous than you
think, okay, my machine. So, I have know everything.
Now that's really a totally wrong attitude.
You have to Especially also, then you have to ask.
Yeah and and and stay open for feedback.
And once you have such a culture industry, take some time to
make. This culture is also one of the
key characteristics that you really have to treat it with
great respect. So if someone says, I don't
know, never ever dared to say something negative about it.
I thought you, you really knew that or you, you're so long
doing this stuff. Why don't just do?
Maybe something feel the urge but just don't really treat you
out with the best respect. You have and then you start
really see that that people open up.
They get they get more trust. They feel at ease also saying
how are things going? How does something work?
And once you have this culture then the things I just mentioned
with these knowledge sharing ones, a story or in a Sprint or
whatever you'll have and Innovation Days by the way
because things sometimes you need to be experiment with new
stuff. Not with related stuff to do for
your business. Then all the things you'll
actually merge automatically. I love that.
I mean there's humbleness and there's Beauty in that and
there's openness. But how do you create such a
culture or? I mean you've probably worked to
create such a culture at your current job.
How do you do that? How do you start and how do you
Foster that? Yeah and it's a very interesting
one and it's definitely not something you just can do as
individual. I found that you have quite an
impact if you do it. But the I think the primary
aspect you have to take very seriously.
That you do not do this as a front liner so you have this
really in the background. So by by steering certain
situations, not that that they see you or perceive you as to
one who makes here. The easier, the safe atmosphere,
where knowledge can expand should something you do in the
background and people don't they shoot a notice it?
Yeah. And this takes quite a bit of of
soft skills to do that. So that's 41, and what then is
very important, is that You actually never judge.
You don't judge. Of course, there are good ideas
and bad ideas, but instead of judging them as good as bad, you
just keep on asking. Okay, why do you think is a bad
idea? And then people come up with
different ideas and instead of directly again, judging say this
is this, we're going to do, is you're not going to do say, okay
now we have two options so then you you you always address it as
facts as long as you can. And what I've realized that most
of the time, the better solution just get It Out by itself or
yeah reveals itself. Because you put all these facts
together so that the whole team actually has hey, okay.
I think this rule is better and what's also nice about it is
when you don't judge because so often, someone says something,
and you're going to charge that, yeah, then it has some personal
element, I said something wrong. This is kind of the message.
This person will have. When you address your more like
that to you graduate, you gather all the input of the different
people. All the different team members?
Yeah, you put this fact beside beside.
You also have two different, people brought in different
facts and once the solution then becomes clear.
It's also more solution of the whole team.
So the commitment will then be more of a team that individual
that said, that these bright individual who really knows how
things work even. So, this individual might be
there. The side effect that the team
gets the credit for coming up with the And it's just
tremendous powerful when you keep repeating that, then you
actually create this trust that people also maybe just say
something, which is when you just look at it.
A bit stupid. Yeah.
But by not addressing it that way.
Not judging it. You get a different very
different and very effective than MX.
Yeah. I mean, you keep you keep being
objective and just laying out the facts and people actually
usually figure it out. If they don't, then other people
will, I mean, they will collaborate and together, you'll
come to the right solution. Yeah, love that.
Love hearing that as Well yeah, besides development and besides
just the day-to-day work. You you do.
I've also read that you've been a coach and you've been a
trainer? I mean, it's pretty apparent in
the the way you talk and how you come across in stuff like this.
But how did you, how did you become?
Let's say, a coach or a trainer. When were you like?
Alright, I really like doing this.
And this is what I want to proceed to do as well.
Yeah, that's a very good question and prior to just talk
I thought a bit about it. How did it come?
Because sometimes things just happen without that you re
consciously think about it. My conclusion is that what
really drives me in this whole training thing or knowledge?
Sharing, is that able to give this part to a certain person
that then goes on with it and eventually creates this fire
with by whom he is possible to reforge great stuff.
Yeah. Well, what I'm actually able to
do is so can look your skin your skin compared with a seed you
plant and then eventually the something good will come comes
out of it. Sure.
Which in essence is extent someone else capabilities that's
actually what I'm able to contribute to and personally I
think in life these are one of the most beautiful things we
have as humans that we can extend our Capital capabilities
and capacities. Yeah which in that sense are
infinite, right? We're never reached the stage.
Where we just know everything at least exact.
Not, not something I can, I can fathom and being part of that
is, yeah, it's a wonderful experience.
So also, once had a conference and I said, I previous in the
past and still now I'm giving quite some courses and then so
much. Just watch me said, hey, you're
the one who taught me, Scarlett, there's a program language and I
didn't really recognize the person ever.
Once you have quite some Justin yeah don't remember every face
but then he was talking very Advanced off with you language
and yeah, it's kind of field. I feel humbled that I was the
one who just gave this seed or his Park which then brought him
to beer in expert in this field. Awesome.
Yeah. And and in that sense so this is
the drive behind it and in order to be in front of a class takes
quite some effort. First of all, I need some
credibility for sure. I said they won't hire you if
they don't even if they're not really persuaded that, you Or
the expert in the field and that's more or less.
The second aspect, I really love about this training sheet.
It forces me to really dive into certain Technologies and really
know the ins and outs of it before other than the average
for I teach for sure. And since I really discovered
the pleasure of learning. Yeah.
Quite early on, this gives me some extra boost to really make
it my own in the sense that also can explain it to others.
Exactly. You need a certain level of I
guess completeness before you are able to teach and you notice
that you you understand the subject even better when you
teach as well. Yeah.
I mean that's what I've noticed
for sure. If I try and explain some
details to someone I'm able to how do you say that gather my
thoughts better and even for the future, remember it better as
well. That's correct.
Yeah. And in that sense it's also a
win-win for me because yeah. First of all It's cool to learn
new stuff. Yeah.
Then you know the stuff which also makes you more effective.
Yeah. And third.
You also can. Yeah.
In fact orders with it, it's something it's a current time.
Yeah. Yeah.
Very nice. Very nice.
Do you still give training classes nowadays?
Yeah, sure sure. Yeah.
Just did certification to check Teresa month ago for a new
programming language calling cool.
And I've done courses before that but also the The
credibility. I think it's worthwhile to
certify yourself. Yeah, anything.
That's what it should start doing that as soon as possible
get certified. Or is it something later in your
knowledge? This is more assertive.
Turn trainer certification. It's not a certificate for
language. It's written.
I'm certified as a trainer. Yeah.
And that's a very good question. Should people get certified or
not? Yeah, I think that's the one we
can talk about a little bit. Sure.
Sure what I've realized. Lized isn't that's very bit.
Broad, maybe gets a bit fuzzy but okay, we can Define can
narrow down all the time we get and nowadays.
We also confronted with quite some interesting research from
Neuroscience where they also look at Behavior aspects.
We haven't had some years ago. Yeah.
Also the motivation. It's a bit neuroscience and
combined with psychology. They become a bit together.
Yeah. I've watched several Talks by
certain professors, and one interesting thing is that
actually the, the urge to learn is actually planted in every
human. Yeah, it's trinsic.
Its intrinsic, exactly. So learning to walk, Yuri don't
have to go to walking School, exactly want to learn to walk.
They are just walk out in the park and then the third is kit
on this bike was maybe four years old and, and just, just
not really stable. But, you know, this expression
on the face for cool. I can handle the thing.
And Almost you almost crashed crashed into me but it went
well, but but this kind of these urged is this explorative
mindset of discover new things. That's really intrinsic in
humans. And what I've come to is also
with my studies and and school is that schools, not
particularly a good Institute to keep this kind of fire burning
it, at least. Yeah.
I've always, I'm I'm a student that actually also went to
school and the liked it quite a lot.
So I didn't have a lot of problems with that, but I've
seen around me that not everybody likes that just kind
of being forced to learn. Yeah, even though, of course, I
understand the need for our society and so on, but it would
be beautiful. If you could keep this kind of
flame awake that learning is axons in beautiful, because it
enriches your eyes in Rich and your capabilities, it enriches
you as a Personnel as a personality.
Yeah, so it's probably just too many distractions nowadays for
for a kid that's going to school and needs to learn about
economics and and probably it and biology and all that sort of
stuff too many distractions, probably.
But one of the Beauties is in the, IT world.
There's so much to learn. I don't think you can learn all
the things. I mean, there's Cloud.
There's you can delve into software, specifics delve into
infrastructure as well and everything that goes around it.
I think we're kind of P to have found this and be able to learn
on a day-to-day basis as well. That's correct.
Yeah. But moving back to then
certification. Exactly exactly.
Because certification is also kind of moment where you like in
school where you have to pause or do not pass.
Yeah, which actually is some sort of artificial bar.
You raised for you said, okay. Now you're good enough or you're
not good enough. It's a kind of binary decision,
right? And learning as I've
experienced, it also myself is, it's never done, you know?
Always know something and by experimenting more and more, you
get more into it and you get more proficient but it's not
really, really dumb. So assuming that the
certification is sufficient for someone to start, I didn't even
study informatics exactly. I did it all by myself because I
had this interest because I really like to explore things
and find out how things work. How do they really work?
Okay, also, Under the hood, under the hood.
Yeah. Not only just the surface and of
course you start with the surface, but then you kind of
get this to get you get this needs to discover, how how does
it really work? And then probably really because
it's always layered after things work and I think that's the most
important thing you have to keep awake and when you think that by
doing certifications, you have that, I think that's the wrong.
That's the, that's the wrong approach saying.
Having said that, it's Still, of course.
Okay, to have a certain base level when you step in your team
so it can be kind of good as an entry entry point there.
But also when we make decisions to bring someone on our team or
not it's not really how many certifications yet.
It's more how explorative someone is.
How playful is with new stuff? Yeah and I think this attitude
in the in the long run is way more effective than just how
many accolades person has exactly.
Yeah. But then how because What I what
I gather from this is that you really just their mindset, their
capability to learn and you also brief their experience, probably
from the past as well. Exactly.
How do you get that? How do you get a grasp of what a
person actually can do without all the accolades?
Let's say as it just by doing a conversation or is it more of
like code interviews or how do you usually do that?
And it's also good question at the Kleine right now we are also
part of our job is to bring in new people in the team.
Another one team also in the knees are not external people
but really people that want to commit themselves to this
organization. Yeah.
And what I found very effective is to do a assessment.
Yeah. So this person has to program
something and in this assessment it's very broad.
We gave some boundaries. Yeah and it's a bit up to you
where you want to focus more front-end back-end or more API
more security. It's what you have to do what
you think you can do and what is important for you?
If someone uses for instance, a new technology, Re be rewarded?
Yeah, knowing that, of course it probably won't be as good as if
he would use this technology for years but Just Having the
courage to do that, it's already worth a lot.
So and by doing so, we quite quickly, could separate the
adequate candidates from the Lesser ones.
Just also not only be what they done but also how they think
about it, how they talk about their decisions to mate and why
the make decisions because they are.
They're the real knowledge actually resides.
Oh yeah. How do you really understand
certain aspects of soft development with company's
compensation? Autonomous components coupling
and so on. I'm assuming you you I mean
someone hands in their work and then you talk through it
basically with them, right? So do you do a personal like a
personal assessment first? Okay of course first you do
personal assessment are you just check certain certain Corners
because you don't want to One doing such as a sandwich, takes
quite some time. Yeah, even though you quite know
that for personality point of view, probably won't fit.
So just have a normal talk where you look at the bit person, but
what things he is profile, how he would fit in the team.
That's truly a soft aspect there.
And you, of course, to the neverland, your duty with other
people and then for sure. And the interesting thing is
that actually for every candidate, it's quite evident.
If it's a go or no go. Ok.
In the group. So that's quite a nice to see
in. So, in that sense, we are very
good. Align that with one another, and
when a person has passed this stage, then you let him do the
assessment and then, yes, to present it because you also want
to have some serious presentation skills and then you
start asking tough questions. Yeah, there's a lot of soft
skills than involved as well. I mean, first, you need to kind
of pass the first interview which is kind of a, let's call
it a culture fit, but then you also need to present your work
and be able to kind of gather your thoughts and put them out.
Out there as well as go through the code that you've just
submitted. I guess it's quite a lot.
I think, what's of, what's expected of someone to actually
pass a certain level and get higher than as well?
Now, that's correct. Yeah, you think it's a, it's a
why companies are having trouble finding the right people as well
because they've set these standards and people are not
really passing those or is it more that there's just not a lot
of good people around The approach for instance, we use is
damaged all to other companies using it.
I see. By the way, it more happening,
the recent years that also even for normal project assignments.
So not really that you want to board, want to join the company,
but just want to join the project team.
Yeah. You will have to do some sort of
entry level test to pass the bar.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Happening a bit more and more. That's correct.
What do you think that is? Is it like a trust issue?
Or is it people actually want to see what you bring to the table
before they either hire you or except you within the either
project or company? Where does that come from?
Because yeah. In that sense it's it's an
interesting topic because even though you can give person great
freedom and actually take all the boxes of personal personal
growth that you can give To someone.
Yeah, there still needs to be this kind of affinity with what
someone is doing. That's probably the best way I
can describe it. And I've seen this many times
around me, some have more Affinity than others.
And it is, of course, a very hairy thing to describe, but
some people should just have these technical intuition.
They even throw probably are not really long doing it.
Yeah, and all those people seen the dude, very long.
They don't have this still don't have it.
Yeah, you have the ones that It just yeah, once they they grab
something, they just use it the right way.
They don't talk. They don't think too much about
it about. The hierarchies that are
probably involved in such technology that just know to
apply it in the right way and others don't have it.
Yeah, it's weird. It's probably.
So anyway a gut feeling that everyone has yeah when they are
there let's say pick up an instrument.
I mean you've seen probably older people with technology are
always like, I mean fiddling with it and they don't really
Aspect as well. Exactly.
People from a younger generation that say, and I think technology
is kind of the same, except that it's really broad.
I mean, you have even with the cloud now, you have so many
different levels that you need to be at least certainly or
adequate to a certain level. Yeah.
And you need to have the soft coat skills as well to
communicate about it. It's kind of broad, don't you
think? Do you think everyone should
have a kind of a basic understanding of all those
aspects and then Delve deep into some as well.
Or are you more of the mindset that when you delve deep into
one? The other one's kind of come
natural as well. Yeah I recently read the book
Homo sapiens Safari. Yeah, we heard it is short
history of human mankind. And what I've quite what I found
very, very interesting is that the Neanderthal species was
actually more intelligent and Homo sapiens released in terms
of brain size. Yeah, definitely had a bigger
brain cancer. Probably.
Was he could definitely process more information than sapiens.
But what differentiates our pins was collaboration?
What we Can do at least collaboration.
I think they're the magic is and in a team, of course, it helps
to be t-shaped. There's to have your speciality
and then no bit of the rest and think when you only eye-shaped
so you don't know one thing very well and there is not, it's not
going to help in the team either.
So it helps in the team that you have different special expert in
certain areas. Whereas everybody knows a bit
lot of enough about it, but then by really collaborating, you
will get this this great results.
So yeah. So that's kind of how do you say
that the sum of the team is then greater than the actual.
Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah. Because, you know, each and
everyone's strengths and weaknesses.
Yeah. We're a cover.
You know, what? A step in and help them out as
well. Yeah, nice and what I've also
come to realize is that special is all generation and I'm also
not the youngest anymore but the on learning aspect it becomes
way more important. When you're young you used to
start. And you think the world is as
the world is because the first thing you experience the world
But and then you, you acquire your skills and the skills, they
add some value to what you do. But when time goes by the
skills, you learned before, of course, they won't be as value
will all the time. So things go by and actively on
learn stuff, is kind of painful, right?
Because you had some effort gaining his knowledge, you had
some benefit applying it and then also, you have to let go,
that's hard thing, but still probably the most precious room
because then it's free space just to learn new things.
Yeah, that's also again. The fallacy.
I mentioned before that, you probably shouldn't consider
yourself an expert in an absolute sense.
Of course, you're probably an expert now in a certain
technology of certain thing you do and definitely certain
principles will also apply for new technologies that sends the.
Principal thing doesn't change that fast also changes but not
that fast but also realizing that that for now an expert but
tomorrow may be something else comes and when Compton, I have
to unlearn and relearn something new is really helps, and I think
it's also from a human perspective.
Also, a good thing to be a bit, humble about the things not that
you get too self-assured about yourself knowing stuff.
Exactly. That's what the homeowners comes
in. Yeah, that's very healthy.
Yeah, it's not always fun but it's healthy for sure.
Yeah. That's probably with a mindset
comes in then as well if you actually interview candidates
people, that actually are able to let go of what they know and
delve into Thing that is completely new to everyone.
Yeah. Very nice.
And I think the most important aspect there is that you just
can keep this playfulness about new things.
Yeah, there it comes. From not just to grab it and
then stick to it because now, I grabbed it now or never let go,
no, just grab it now. Now it's nice to care and throw
it away, something else, because it's fun to learn new stuff.
Yeah, and yeah, that also means it's not for everyone, right?
Because not, everyone loves that kind of building up the
experience and then completely ring It Go.
Kind of but definitely letting it go and trying out something
else. Yeah, I mean I've heard and read
that. Once you learn a certain
programming language to a certain degree that picking up
the next one and kind of executing that in a similar
degree gets easier. That's correct.
And the next one even easier as well.
Yeah, yeah. And I I mean, I know you love
kotlin as well but you used to be a scholar certified trainer
before you became a government certified trainer as well.
Yeah, so I mean, I know you let go Oh of let's say a programming
language and step to the new one.
What's your kind of opinion on Copeland and where it stands
right now? Yeah, before that I of course
did a lot of java stuff also, with all the certifications you
can imagine. Yeah.
For a move down to Scala and I think kotlin really achieved to
position itself in The Sweet Spot between Java, which is
old-fashioned has really quite some drawbacks.
It's very verbose. Yeah.
Versus Scala which is extremely Advanced allows you to Address
it in very different ways, hard, core functional Morrow something
in between it's very hard for teams to get some kind of
idiomatic approach how they want to do.
It will definitely different across teams in the same company
and even within the team it can differ based on the knowledge
someone brings with him. Yeah and in coupling they
actually cut out all the disadvantages.
Java has and literally all the disadvantages.
Cheese. And of course, they didn't
invent all by themselves. They stole a lot.
Also from Scotland other language.
Sure, why not? And that that's that's fine,
right? I mean just best of breed.
And also, that's why I say it's in between between Java and
Scala. Also from Scarlet, they took a
lot. But left the very complex of
very complex stuff that allows you to really go wild with
languages which specially in many contexts is just
unnecessary make context. At least context.
I mean it Enterprise context. Are you most of the time shift
data around, maybe sometime, sometimes do something more
advanced than that. Yeah, I've seen that costly
really, really shines. No nice.
Was it already in the assignment before you entered?
Or was it something that you introduced them were?
Like I mean hey this is something really neat.
Should we use this and if so, let's try it out.
Something you introduced? Yeah it's something I introduced
because when I came there they just started out with the first
Microsoft was in Java. The old-fashioned way through
with all the bad practices like mutability.
No no no checking just yeah just to actually approach many
projects still do today and of course I came with his Carla
background but with Carla I read it my doubts.
Certain if I just bring in all this complexity to this to these
people, this is going to be effective for what we are doing
because we just do Enterprise processing.
Those quite some of the old stuff and But it's just the end
its Enterprise processing. It's not writing some scientific
software, that that really has to do, weird of complicated, to
way, way out of free stuff. Then I looked at Kathleen and I
felt a directly loved by so many of us.
Carla background, cotton is quite easy to learn.
Okay? Then we did a sample project.
Compared it to what you had in Java.
We sort of, you have tremendous, code reduction, we had way more
expressive domains, we had all these notability checks, Amor is
checked exceptions. We had everything immutable.
It was a very was just great maintainable.
Safe. Software with 60% less code.
Yeah. Then the decision was quickly
made. Yeah.
Awesome. So, you actually did kind of the
both both same executions in different in different
languages. Yeah.
And then based on that, you actually chose Gatlin in this
sense and that's correct. And of course, the team was
involved. Yeah, sure, execute.
If this is what I mean, when I say you and I are exactly the
team. Exactly.
And also now because we still have some Legacy that is in Java
and I we've written a lot. And when people just start
working on the star project then they really miss Scotland.
Extremely fast. Damn.
It's really painful. Yeah.
Really. Yeah, so it's it's really a step
back. I treat it really feels like a
step back. Okay.
And it's not myself because I'm of course, I'm probably a bit
opinionated because I really love cotton linen.
Do a lot with it but also just the programmers there.
They I often. Here saying that to this.
When are we going to rewrite this in Cotton?
Because this is just a pain. Yeah, so when it when it's not
really just your own opinion but also other people's opinion is
when it kind of becomes apparent that it is quite a step back.
Now you get that. But people had to learn then on
the job to make the switch as well.
Language-wise. That's correct.
And of course I'll help them because I've created these
calling course and they were my genie pigs.
In that sense, I try my cords out them on them and it helps of
course because Gave them these bail and he gave them certain
boundaries. Yeah.
And by doing so they were very quickly effective.
Now, we're still doing more advanced stuff with co-routines
and asking programming reactive programming also, it's called
lean and also their, I had some new models developed and first
they could do them. And then I let them also program
with the more advanced concept and this just has paid out there
very well. Yeah, beautiful, how did you
pick that up with you like all right, I'm going to take one day
a week or once every two Two weeks.
And we're gonna have a day of kind of a one-to-many classroom
session or is it you're going to try, try out stuff and come to
me whenever you have questions or will try to collaborate, and
I'll be there as kind of a coach session.
So, yeah, that's it. That's a very good question and
which also actually relates to a principal.
Is it good to just let people go into the jungle and explore and
learn stuff? Or is it better just to give
them some certain degree? Some Some guidance.
What is more effective? And some time ago, a taxi via,
we had a professor who really studied that with Kate's that
Learn Python nice. And it was for my dress reason.
I open it because I experienced this before, what is more
effective and this? The result of the studies, this
professor did kind of reassured my personal observation, which
is that Kate's dad were just let out to into the wild, we're
definitely less effective than the ones that got some guidance.
And the guidance is, of course, and it's an equilibrium in the
sense that you have to give them some structure then, especially
with furtherance of instant assignments.
You have to let them go a bit beyond their comfort zone but
not too much just a bit. And if you do this bit, 10 times
with different assignments, different parts of the language,
which they come from sword is cool growing quite quickly.
They also get the boundary and the feeling of what are good
practices, bad practices. Whereas the ones with the free
mindset, it's definitely less structured.
They, you can also get lost quite quickly because there's so
much information. Exactly.
Yeah. And that's what also experience
with training in general, you companies that pick up new
technologies, they probably will create quite some technical
death with the first projects to do eventually Learn it but
themselves but probably the first two projects will be full
of taking the F because did not doing it arrival doing.
Probably the the new way in the in the style of the old program
language they are all from suboptimal then which is AB
optimal then yeah and that's the approach.
Also had then I applied in the company.
So we first had these training sessions or fish during sessions
with assignments or the handsome part.
So important, not only theory that re not not going to work.
It's the Hands-On part burden, implicitly.
They also get to know you. Pneumatic way, the boundaries,
how you dress it in this language best practice and so on
and then they did it on the job. He had some reviews but there
was could relate back to what initially learned in the
training setting and this just works beautifully because now a
developer just write code and maybe this is why I have to say
something. But code-wise, it's it's fully
in line as if someone else has written it.
So we had this, we have this Unified We do not really see
which person has written. What?
And I think this is really big achievement in Project when when
you can code like that idea for searches shared understanding of
what is good code. And I think this approach I've
chosen they're really contributed to this result.
Yeah, it sounds like a huge boost in efficiency.
If everyone has kind of the same mindset in how they express
themselves, code-wise makes it like reading a book, for
example. Exactly.
Yeah, is that also let's say I go to you.
For a for a continent training is that also kind of how your
training is structured. So I have a day which is kind of
methodology, methodology, Oakley more Theory I guess and then
some practice as well and with some days in between or is it
more of a week course and you have days or of classes back to
back and structured before covid.
It was of course, more classroom setting.
Now it's more remote and I've come to realize that it's not
really a bad thing. Of course, you have to get used
to it and turn Interaction. It's a bit less but you, we
split such a training in half day.
So every week half a day for instance, which gives quite some
time for the people to absorb the, the knowledge better.
And also then next session they can ask questions about the
stuff before maybe they tried out more things.
So I think in the end run yeah it sticks better.
If you do it like that the program is always structured
search that you have some Theory and theory in the sense that you
have some code samples. Also often related to another
program language because the relative thing is strong.
Yeah learning something from our alternative point of view
himself. Absolute is way more easy for
humans as we also know with chrome where you also estimate
stories relatively. So the relative approach just
works with humans, that was also a science teachers, that's a
dressy. So you have some samples where
you just point out the most important parts and then
directly some exercises. Also group exercises, also
people can Enter own solution that you get discussion about
it, but you also get a chance to create a shared understanding of
what is good code. Yeah.
This requires some involvement of everyone.
Yeah, it seems very interesting that it went from, let's say
another crash course, week into half a day a week, then with a
lot of breathing room and the ability to try things out and
then I can come back and ask questions about that.
Yeah. Do you think it'll stick even
post covid? Kind of more online?
Sessions or longer form trainings as well?
I think it will. I think it will only challenge.
I still have now and there are some tools to come round is
Norman classroom. I just can walk around.
Look at screens and I directly see where someone has some
challenges with French an assignment.
Yeah, which implies of course, that probably certain part of
the subject is not understood. There are some ways to work
around that but that's harder because you choose Cannot walk
around. Look at someone else screen.
Yeah. And the sadder tools to do that
compilation tools. They also coming up because
covid forces also tools to more go that way.
I think it's a question of Tantalus.
These tools are there that you can quite easily see what
someone else is doing. And once that the case, I think
there's really nothing else that keeps us from offering training
like that beautiful. Yeah, I get that the part of
actually being physically next to someone is a bit more
Hands-On than it would be otherwise offline as well.
Yeah, so then the, the final question I have for you is is
let's say I'm someone that's very early in career and I want
to step into development and being a software engineer as my
future career. What would be the advice that
you would give someone like that?
Yeah, which probably will be some sort of summary of what,
I've, what I've mentioned in during the talk.
First of all, I think it's very, very, very important to keep the
spark of learning new stuff alive in yourself.
So let yet let yourself be driven by the, the, the urge to
broaden your horizons broadened your skills by doing.
So it helps to start structured to certain extent.
And once you have some sort of some sort of foundation and did
you can do with courses or everyone's different, right?
So I want to stay for in that sense, but it helps to start at
within a structured Manner. And from there on to Do not be
scared to ask for help and let your whatever you do be reviewed
and touched the sense to make it better by others.
So, always, stay open that you keep on growing.
So there is never a point which probably is something you might
think cop comes once. When you start new in it that
you want to know everything, there will never be a point
where you have the so always stay open.
That new stuff will come. They do what you do today.
Can be done tomorrow in the morning.
Effective way. And when you are able to keep
this openness and keep, also the Choi, involves it to always
learn new stuff and broaden your yourself.
I think, then you have a great right through through our
industry. Beautiful beautiful.
Thanks Bruce. Thank you for coming on and hope
to speak to you soon. Thanks to great, to talk to you
from your sponsors sepia, creating digital leaders.
Effective way. And when you are able to keep
this openness and keep, also the Choi, involves it to always
learn new stuff and broaden your yourself.
I think, then you have a great right through through our
industry. Beautiful beautiful.
Thanks Bruce. Thank you for coming on and hope
to speak to you soon. Thanks to great, to talk to you
from your sponsors sepia, creating digital leaders.