Episode 193 | Gregory Brown - A Perspective of Going Beyond

Guest: Gregory Brown @practicingdev Gregory Brown talks with Dave Rael about unorthodox approaches, views about business and life, long and short term optimism, and going beyond the practices that color our daily lives Gregory Brown is a business operations consultant, software developer, and technical writer. His new book "Programming Beyond Practices" was published by O'Reilly this fall, and it focuses on the non-code aspects of software development. Chapters: 2:15 - Dave introduces the show and Gregory Brown5:29 - The nature of businesses and Gregory's perspective on value and business ethics11:12 - Advice for programmers focused primarily on software16:00 - The value or lack thereof of mission statements18:29 - Gregory's book - Programming Beyond Practices21:48 - Gregory's story and history of getting involved with Ruby, consulting, creating coding education resources, and mentoring27:19 - Gregory's motivations and different models of providing good things33:22 - Practicing Developer - a shift to something broader than just code - "pretend as if all the coding problems are easily solvable ... What's leftover then? ... What's the job of a software developer then?"38:47 - Gregory's story of failure - pathological altruism, unsustainability45:04 - Gregory's success story - shifting perspective and realizing the importance of an infrastructure including self-care49:29 - The things that have Gregory most excited52:50 - Gregory's book recommendations55:59 - Gregory's causes of pain and suffering58:14 - Gregory, the Buddhist practitioner, personal interpretation and growing personally60:54 - Gregory's top 3 tips for delivering more value63:16 - Keeping up with Gregory Resources: Programming Beyond Practices - Gregory Brown Gregory's Blog Practicing Ruby Prawn PDF "You cannot serve both God and money." - Matthew 6:24 "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." - 1 Timothy 6:10 "By their fruit you will recognize them." - Matthew 7:16 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change - Stephen R. Covey James Edward Gray on Developer On Fire James Edward Gray Ruby Rogues Dave Thomas on Developer On Fire Melvin Conway #HumanizeTheCraft (Mel Conway) Eric Evans - What I've learned about DDD since the book Gregory's book recommendation: Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests - Steve Freeman Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software - Eric Evans The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development - Donald G. Reinertsen Gregory's top 3 tips for delivering more value: Active listening Demonstrate you understanding - Enhance your communication by finding way to test your understanding with feedback Have patience