Episode 389 | Daniel Oliver - Acceptance of the Users

Guest:

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Daniel Oliver talks with Dave Rael about community involvement, the value of people in software, hard-earned lessons, and delivering value to developers and end users

Daniel Oliver is a Microsoft MVP and a Senior Software Engineer in Tennessee. Interested in the Cloud, DevOps, Distributed Systems, .NET, and correctness of software, Daniel has worked on software for agribusiness, healthcare, and now retail and manufacturing. Having graduated college in 2014, Daniel is doing his best to grow as a person and understand that it's not about the tech, but the people! When asked "what is best in life?", he replied "To code your program, to see it deployed before you, and to hear the acceptance of the users". When not programming, he plays a lot of board games, fences with swords, reads a lot of books, and tries to take care of his garden and yard-work.

Chapters: 0:36 - Dave introduces the show and Daniel Oliver2:18 - Recognizing the value of people over technology8:31 - How Daniel got started in software12:56 - Daniel's growing emphasis on balancing work and the other parts life15:29 - Seeking out valuable mentors in the job search and what to find out in a job interview20:30 - The appeal of unique physical activities23:24 - Daniel on speaking at user groups and conferences25:43 - Daniel's broad interests and divergent job description27:25 - Getting involved in the developer community28:44 - Daniel's story of failure - creating a disastrous bug that prevented the taking of orders due to divergent runtime environments37:09 - Daniel's success story - facilitating a migration to a better system, cleaning up data, and creating a better experience for patients and healthcare professionals42:11 - Daniel's book recommendation44:17 - Daniel's top 3 tips for delivering more value46:37 - Keeping up with Daniel

Resources: The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist - Frederick P. Brooks Brooks Cameron Presley on Developer On Fire Nashville .NET User Group Eric Anderson Gaines Kergosien on Developer On Fire Jamie Phillips

Daniel's book recommendation: The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win - Gene Kim

Daniel's top 3 tips for delivering more value: Software developers are users, too - Make processes and software easy for them as well as for end users - Complexity is not a badge of honor for the elite There is no best software development methodology - the only thing that matters is what works best for the company Don't attach emotional value to the way things have been done before, don't be afraid of change