Developer on Fire
Episode 123 | James Coplien - Concern for the Human Being
Jim “Cope” Coplien has enjoyed mastering several careers starting as a computer operator and moving on to development at AT&T, and then on to fundamental research in Bell Labs. His research helped establish the foundations of the software pattern discipline, of Scrum (Daily Standups come out of his process work), and of many staples and leading advances in object-orientation, including joint work with Trygve Reenskaug (treegve rinskauv) on the DCI paradigm, and is the creator of the trygve programming language.. He has written numerous books and scores of papers. Cope has been writing software since about 1971 and was the first user of C++ outside Bell Labs Research. He continues to deliver code mainly in Objective-C, which he tolerates; Java, which he hates; and Ruby, which he loves. He’s a Mac guy. He has also worked in VLSI CAD, academia, and executive consulting, and for the past 20 years, concern for the human being has been at the core of his work. When he grows up he wants to be an anthropologist.
Chapters:
- - Dave introduces the show and Jim Coplien
- - Concern for the human being
- - How Jim got started in computer hardware and software
- - Cope's cross-disciplinary studies and learning
- - Jim's story of failure - systemic rather than individual failures, learning from business with clients, "There is no failure — only feedback" — Jerry Weinberg
- - Cope's success story - success as an author, building communities around Patterns
- - How Jim stays current with what he needs to know
- - The Orwellian doublethink in some communities
- - Cope's book recommendations
- - The things that have Jim most excited
- - The things about which Jim likes to geek out
- - Cope's prediction for the future of software
- - Jim's top 3 tips for delivering more value
- - Keeping up with Cope
Resources:
- Jim's IEEE Blog
- Esther Derby on Developer On Fire
- Jerry Weinberg on Developer On Fire
- Aral Balkan on Developer On Fire
- Miller–Urey experiment
- Jack Perconte
- Patterns of Tee-Ball Hitting
- Take Me Out to the Ball Game
- Jeff Sutherland
- Trygve Reenskaug
- Andrei Alexandrescu
- Uncle Bob Martin on Developer On Fire
- 1984 (Signet Classics) - George Orwell
- Orwelliam
- Doublethink
- trygve language
- DCI - Data Context Interaction (fulloo.info)
- Niels Bohr
- Intelligence Squared Debate - Don't Trust the Promise of Artificial Intelligence
Jim's book recommendation:
- Software Development and Reality Construction - Christiane Floyd, Heinz Züllighoven, Reinhard Budde, Reinhard Keil-Slawik
- A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure) - Christopher Alexander
- The Timeless Way of Building - Christopher Alexander
- The Oregon Experiment (Center for Environmental Structure) - Christopher Alexander
- The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe, Book 1 - The Phenomenon of Life (Center for Environmental Structure, Vol. 9) - Christopher Alexander
- The Process of Creating Life: Nature of Order, Book 2: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe (The Nature of Order)(Flexible) - Christopher Alexander
- The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe, Book 3 - A Vision of a Living World (Center for Environmental Structure, Vol. 11) - Christopher Alexander
- The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe, Book 4 - The Luminous Ground (Center for Environmental Structure, Vol. 12) - Christopher Alexander
Jim's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
- Understand the value proposition of your client
- Meet with your clitentele face to face
- Use empathy - take an acute sense of social responsibility