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David-Heinemeier-Hansson-keynote.md

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Presenter: David Heinemeier Hansson

Abstract

David Heinemeier Hansson is a partner at 37signals, a privately-held Chicago-based company committed to building the best web-based tools possible with the least number of features necessary.

37signals' products include Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, Campfire, Ta-da List, and Writeboard. 37signals' products do less than the competition -- intentionally.

He is also the creator of Ruby on Rails.

Notes

From @benjaminoakes

  • Almost 10 years of Ruby
  • Constant progress
  • Is all progress good?
    • REST (Rails 1.2) was seen as bad by some: Added routes.rb
    • Ruby 1.9: we're not there yet
    • Bundler: some people didn't like it
    • Rails 3: harder upgrade
    • Asset pipeline: cool, but took reorganization
    • CoffeeScript: different than JS, but what does it provide?
  • In specific cases, "progress" can be hard to say whether "good" or "bad"
  • "The old one was better"
    • e.g., OSX Lion
  • Not all forward movement isn't always progress
  • Measurements can be subjective and objective
    • Does it make the car go faster?
    • e.g., less code
  • Skepticism is OK
  • What's your default mode? Curious or suspicious?
    • When does a switch happen?
    • "A conservative is a liberal who got mugged"
    • Lost data, introduced bugs, took a long time to upgrade...
    • "New stuff!" -> "Ugh, new stuff..."
    • Customer or boss says "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
    • Can turn to overreaction
    • Fear
    • Getting older -> like change less
    • Young -> easier to accept change
    • (Kind of seems like Suzuki's "Beginner's Mind" concept)
    • Not everyone keeps those old ideals (old hippies are rare)
    • Turn into "Mr. Mature"
    • Has something to lose
    • Nice things -> instinctively don't want to lose them (e.g. lots of companies using Rails, etc.)
    • Will suck the life and fun out of you
    • 3-5 years: start growing suspicous
    • Not a whole lot of people go back
    • "Loss aversion is the pillar of conservatism" (as a mental frame of mind)
    • "Won't somebody please think of the newbies?"
    • Want to change it into a easy-bake oven
    • A real oven teaches you real skills, even though it's more dangerous

Discussion

  • What does this mean for the iPad, OS X Mountain Lion, etc. which are simplified? Does that mean we'll have people with fewer programming skills? @benjaminoakes