Elevator Pitch
If you don’t want to know how to tell an expert from a novice, this talk isn’t for you. If you know everything about sorting, this talk isn’t for you. If you know everything on any other subject, this talk is not for you. But if you suspect that sometimes it depends, you’ll enjoy this talk.
Description
“The best sorting algorithm is quick sort.” “Indexes make DB faster.” “Data should be sorted using ORDER BY.” “Composition - good; inheritance - not good.” “Windows is an operating system.” “You must have transactions in your DB.” “Java is slow.” “Don’t eat yellow snow.” “You shall not self-sign your certificates.” “Interrupt in Java is broken.”
The IT world is full of mantras/revealed truth, passed (often in oral tradition) among developer tribes. Mindlessly repeated from generation to generation, they cause a reckless usage. At best this results in more harm than good, in the worst case: a total disaster worth whole train of money. The context is indispensable part of each mantra. Right context can help to distinguish proper usage from incoming disaster.
Do you believe in a mantra by any chance? How to find out the context? Can one eat yellow snow? Come and see.
Notes
Dear Reviewers
This talk was born because of my fascination of the people (generally speaking), the IT world and the space (maybe that can be seen in the slides ;-) ). Some time ago I started to ask questions during interviews like ‘what’s the best sorting algorithm’ and sadly hardly anyone answers ‘it depends’. People believe in many cargo cults and they apply them every day at work. Recently I started to explain younger people what programming (in general) in Java (in particular) is about. They’re curious, ask lots of questions, but my answer many times is ‘it depends’. Initially, they clearly don’t like it, because ‘this is not psycho-therapy session’. The (future) engineers ask precise questions to a guy who’s been programming in Java for 15 years and instead of a precise answer right away, they hear ‘it depends’! Some are a bit frustrated at the beginning, but after explaining the point of such answers they start to accept them. Even better: when I fire a question at them, they don’t answer rapidly with a mantra, but think what to say. I take it as my personal success.
I gave this talk last year during DevoxxPL, DevoxxUA, DevFest Toulouse, also during main an local events of 4Developers in Poland and others. The feedback is usually good, like this: https://eventory.cc/lecture/jQ9xuzAk8w or http://przybyl.org/pres/feedback/DevoxxUA_feedback_CONTEXTVS_STVLTE.png, http://przybyl.org/pres/feedback/DevFestToulouse_feedback_CONTEXTVS_STVLTE.jpg. Or this: https://twitter.com/zendevnet/status/983381526648893440 ;-)
Thank you.
Best regards Piotr