Cheers from Red Hat Summit and DevNation! I enjoyed sharing my experiences last year, and eagerly volunteered for the opportunity to do so again this year. I arrived in Boston yesterday at around lunch time, and didn't have an opportunity to attend many sessions yesterday. Today was somewhat similar, except– I caught one DevNation Session, the Middleware KeyNote and Summit General Session.
Joel Tosi - There are No Environments
Why I liked it? Right before the talk, I was recruiting some of my coworkers to attend. I told them that I had listened to Joel talk in the past, and described him as an engaging, and often self-effacing speaker– definitely my kind of talk. Not only does Joel say things that matter, he also says them in ways that make me laugh. This talk was no different than any other I've heard.
Best Quote (I've got two!):
"If you don't give developers enough to do, they'll just surf YouTube all day." &
"Devops without product context is just the wrong thing, built faster." –Joel Tosi
Compelling idea to use with your teams: Pick a team, and trust them to do what they will. Amazing things will happen.
Cool thing to check out: Certainly not a new concept, but one I respect and love to share. Read up about David Hussman and Dude's Law.
Most Important Takeaway: The things you build today are going to suck next year. If you build too much, the cost is going to be too high. You want to be able to swap over architecture when you are ready to pull it out. Good architecture is cheap to change. In addition, people who are not doing the work should not be allowed to make decisions about how it is done. Instead, leaders should be clear on the value and direction you are trying to drive towards.
I could not do justice to the presenters by writing an overview of either the Middleware Keynote– the demos made me so very proud of the engineering teams at Red Hat– or the Summit General Session. The videos are already up on Youtube. Why don't you check them out!
A final note before closing, I wrote this down in my notebook, and circled around it several times. Best quote of the day!
Last updated: March 15, 2023"The best ideas rarely start at the top. The best ideas come from users solving a problem." –Jim Whitehurst