Episode 403 | Mathias Brandewinder - Methodical and Fun

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Mathias Brandewinder talks with Dave Rael about speaking, confidence, choices, gatekeepers, and biases

Mathias Brandewinder has been developing software for about 10 years, and loving every minute of it, except maybe for a few release days. His language of choice was C#, until he discovered F# and fell in love with it. He enjoys arguing about code and how to make it better, and gets very excited when discussing TDD or functional programming. His other professional interests include machine learning and applied math. Mathias is a Microsoft F# MVP and the founder of Clear Lines Consulting. He is based in San Francisco, blogs at http://brandewinder.com/ and Twitter handle is @brandewinder

Chapters: 0:36 - Dave introduces the show and Mathias Brandewinder4:44 - How Mathias got started in software7:41 - Early experiences with F#12:48 - Comparing software to the physical world15:22 - Qualities of software people that make them worthy of your attention and listening19:27 - Mathias on being a speaker23:18 - Mathias's story of failure - rejection from academic programs that sabotaged a teaching dream with great prior investment26:11 - Creating the career path you want and finding a way in spite of the gatekeepers and naysayers30:08 - Balancing the forces of methodical productivity and enjoyable endeavor34:18 - Mathias's book recommendations38:02 - The good and bad of consulting and the importance of being frank41:32 - Mathias's top 3 tips for delivering more value44:46 - Keeping up with Mathias

Resources: Mathias's Blog Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) Simulated Annealing Steffen Forkmann FAKE - F# Make Jérémie Chassaing If You're not Live Coding, You're Dead Coding! - Jeremy Chassaing Scott Hanselman on Developer On Fire Constraints Liberate - Mark Seemann on .NET Rocks! Mark Seemann on Developer On Fire Code Golf Anchoring

Mathias's book recommendation: Test Driven Development: By Example - Kent Beck Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

Mathias's top 3 tips for delivering more value: When you don't know, just say so Resist bias and consider risk using a technique for imagining a failure to deliver on the estimated schedule and asking why it will happen Identify people who aren't speaking and seek their input