060: Coping with Complexity with Kent Beck

December 27th, 2017 · 43 mins 2 secs

About this Episode

01:19 – Kent’s Superpower: Putting Things Together That Don’t Necessarily Go Together

Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander

04:01 – Metaphors in Software Development

07:32 – Writing Tests and Keeping a Journal

@jessitron
The unit/integration distinction confuses me. I test at the level of, “Here’s a thought I need to capture.”

@KentBeck on @greaterthancode

10:58 – Complexity Partitioning

One Bite At A Time: Partitioning Complexity

Kent’s musings on the topic of unit versus integration testing after the show.

21:59 – The Way Systems Change Over Time as an Important Part of How We Design Software

27:20 – Changing Culture Vs Code and Storytelling and Succession

Reflections:

Jamey: Thinking about the reasons why we do things.

Rein: How computer systems are beginning to take on the complexity of biological systems.

Coraline: The concept of lumpers vs splitters.

Sam: How strategies for dealing with complexity don’t just have to be about the problem itself, they can be about the emotional response of the programmer who has to get some work done.

Jessica: The for-allers vs the for-eachers; universalist vs existentialist.

Kent: Not being bothered by culture change and helping people feel the same.

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