I learned to develop software in the 1990s and started full-time work in the 2000s. I took time off to study other fields and returned to the practice in 2012, about the time this book came out. In the last 13-or-so years, I’ve noticed that the art of testing software has changed significantly. Twenty-five years ago, I started to code in an academic lab where we did our own testing out of necessity. In industry,…
“What’s past is prologue; what’s to come, in yours and my discharge,” wrote Shakespeare centuries ago in The Tempest. For the most part, women have been excluded from the enterprise of biomedical research throughout history. However, that practice has been changing in recent decades, and the trend will likely continue in coming decades. The challenge is mostly obvious: How can a woman balance a career demanding high performance with a fulfilling personal life, often with…
Leadership is a tricky task. No amount of technical excellence makes a good leader. The Arbinger Institute, a leadership research group, suggests that a heart at peace internally is the most important component for individuals to lead effectively. They contend this assertion applies to almost every realm of leadership, from parenting and organizations to world politics. And they show exactly how in this leadership fable. This story tells about a group that resolves family conflicts…
Organizational leadership is well-studied because it has such a wide impact. Many professionals spend time perusing books and other materials to glean actionable insights. However, many of those same people don’t spend any time learning how their families work. To reply, leadership author Patrick Lencioni points out that families are just another sort of organization. Yes, family dynamics are different than those of businesses; they deserve a different approach. As with organizations, the skill of…
As young people leave the classroom and enter the workplace, they are immediately struck by how central dealing with people issues becomes. Even the most technically gifted employee has to deal with others’ innumerable quirks. Then, when someone enters management, they may have power, but their job is based on motivating subordinates to produce. Yet few of us have academic expertise in dealing with people. Roy Lubit does. He holds an MD in psychiatry, which…
Many blindly go into leadership roles to achieve a level of social prestige and power over others. However, that attitude does not last long as the spoils of ego satisfaction fade away quickly. To contrast, the Arbinger Institute offers a better way: service to one’s fellow human beings, centered around getting results for the company. When an organizational catches on to this purpose, its effectiveness can skyrocket. This fictional story illustrates how such a mindset…
A lot of people live under the rubric that life conditions us and forms us by teaching us fixed truths about ourselves. However, recent scientific discoveries have taught us that the brain continues to adapt (i.e., learn and re-form) throughout one’s entire life – a property called neuroplasticity. Therefore, our spiritual lives and self-image can grow so long as we live. Author Teri Brown and her new husband Bruce discovered this life principle as they…
Since most emerging contemporary problems require team approaches, fostering a collaborative environment is a key to business success in today’s marketplace. Therefore, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) has a long list of articles available on the topic. They picked and compiled the ten best in this short guide. Much like the magazine articles they originally were, chapters cover various topics, each with its own angle. For instance, one chapter addresses how to check if the…
When a software developer is writing code, she/he is often confronted with a problem: How much work should I put into writing “the best” code versus just doing a quick but serviceable job? Kent Beck, pioneer of the influential Extreme Programming: Embrace Change, addresses this question via an in-depth look at the process of “tidying” code. His answer is usually to “tidy first”… but not always. This book seeks to identify exactly when one is…
A lot of people enter software development because they don’t want their primary job task to consist of interacting with people. However, career progressions often define management as the next step after being a senior developer. To those who don’t want to be with people full-time, this hierarchy can make a dead end. In recent years, the pathway of a staff engineer has opened up. Staff engineers are in charge of the technical direction of…