“From the Metal to the Cloud?” What’s that about?
Every blog needs an introduction to set the tone, and let the reader know what to expect (and whether they will care) — this blog is no different.
I’m John Baldwin, and both I and my colleague Joe Crowley each have more than 30 years software development experience. We have some similarities in our backgrounds (and some significant differences), and we see eye-to-eye on a great many issues. But we are very different people, and we both think that’s a powerfully good thing!
We’ve talked about writing a blog together for a couple of years or more, and we both have a lot of material already available at differing degrees of readiness. We’re finally doing this, and we hope it is to your benefit.
So, why “From the Metal to the Cloud?”
The title was Joe’s idea, and he arrived at it following a discussion we had concerning what we wanted this blog to be about. At its core (pun intended), this blog about paying it forward and passing along wisdom we’ve received from our colleagues and our experiences over the years. We’re calling it “From the Metal to the Cloud” because we will be discussing a wide variety issues that range from aspects of computing that are very close to the machine (the “metal”), to higher-level matters of how to deal with the latest technologies (the “cloud”), how to make your teams more productive, your software more compelling, or your organization more nimble. Joe will write some articles, I’ll write some articles, and for some, we’ll collaborate. There will also be some guest bloggers who can add unique perspectives because of their unusual backgrounds, training, or work histories. We intend to be informative and educational, but we intend to have fun.
Here are some of the topics you can expect to see in the future:
- How do you know where the problems will be in a large body of code? And where the code is likely to be safe?
- Why asking developers to write code on the whiteboard during interviews doesn’t reveal what you think it does.
- Why you shouldn’t use floating point for monetary calculations. (And what you should use instead.)
- A follow-up that explains the gory details of floating point; what things can go wrong, and how to make them go right.
- What makes a great designer?
- How to build security into your systems from the beginning, and why it’s important to do it that way.
- How to find great developers and how to keep them.
- Horror stories of development: Lessons Learned. (Obviously we should save this for Halloween!)
- Best-kept secrets of Agile development that will make the biggest difference in what you can accomplish.
- Old-school techniques our predecessors used, and why some of them are not obsolete!
Obviously, there’s a lot more we can talk about besides these things, and we’ll be taking notes from those who post comments and suggestions. If you will register when you post your comments, you can receive notifications of updates, other comments, and new articles.
Please join us, then, as we discuss the gamut of great software development, from the ‘Metal’ to the ‘Cloud’…
From the Metal to the Cloud 