Full Transcript for Venkat Subramaniam: Programming, Teaching & Never Stop Learning

sitting 00:04:52.370 --> 00:04:54.889 and thinking about what name to give me formally, 00:04:55.089 --> 00:04:59.449 and he decided to take part of my mother's father, 00:04:59.649 --> 00:05:03.509 my maternal grandfather's name, and to take my... 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:06.379 father's father, my paternal grandfather's name, 00:05:06.459 --> 00:05:10.459 and put them together. And it so happened that 00:05:10.459 --> 00:05:13.339 when you combine those two names together, that 00:05:13.339 --> 00:05:16.759 was also a very common South Indian, you know, 00:05:16.759 --> 00:05:19.379 name. So it worked out really well. But that's 00:05:19.379 --> 00:05:21.180 kind of the history where I got my name from 00:05:21.180 --> 00:05:24.939 is, you know, bits and pieces taken from my two 00:05:24.939 --> 00:05:28.839 grandfather's name that created my name. And 00:05:28.839 --> 00:05:31.360 then when I was filling applications for coming 00:05:31.360 --> 00:05:35.259 down to universities here, they just wouldn't 00:05:35.259 --> 00:05:39.639 allow me to fill in such a long name. And so 00:05:39.639 --> 00:05:43.579 I had to break my name into two parts, which 00:05:43.579 --> 00:05:47.360 incidentally, again, ended up really well because 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:50.420 when you split the name, they're also really 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:56.310 common names. series of you know coincidence 00:05:56.310 --> 00:05:59.670 put together the evolution of my name and and 00:05:59.670 --> 00:06:02.740 and my last name is you know, somewhat made up, 00:06:02.740 --> 00:06:05.220 if you will, because in South India, we don't 00:06:05.220 --> 00:06:08.240 have last names. In the North India, they have 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:11.100 last names, but in South, we don't. So there's 00:06:11.100 --> 00:06:14.279 no such thing as a last name. We normally use 00:06:14.279 --> 00:06:16.819 a village name to identify, you know, people. 00:06:16.959 --> 00:06:19.959 And I had brought that in, my name will be four 00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:22.600 times as long, and that's not going to fit any 00:06:22.600 --> 00:06:25.240 forms. But anyway, that's kind of the origin 00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:28.459 of where the names came from. And eventually, 00:06:28.759 --> 00:06:33.199 of course. I kind of stuck to my name in the 00:06:33.199 --> 00:06:36.220 current form, and my family has eventually taken 00:06:36.220 --> 00:06:38.839 that name as a last name. But that's kind of 00:06:38.839 --> 00:06:42.899 where it started and where it went. I'm glad 00:06:42.899 --> 00:06:46.360 I asked because that's a pretty good story. I 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:51.259 really like it. So when you started... down this 00:06:51.259 --> 00:06:54.839 path of computer programmer, you didn't really 00:06:54.839 --> 00:06:57.699 actually start there. I read that you were looking 00:06:57.699 --> 00:07:01.879 to be a mechanical engineer or something instead. 00:07:02.300 --> 00:07:04.759 That's right. So when I was doing my undergrad 00:07:04.759 --> 00:07:09.120 studies, I was really drawn towards mechanical 00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:14.589 engineering. And in fact, I... you know got a 00:07:14.589 --> 00:07:17.550 mentorship with a faculty of mechanical engineering 00:07:17.550 --> 00:07:22.329 and and the tradition was every day uh he would 00:07:22.329 --> 00:07:26.029 throw a problem at me and and my you know mission 00:07:26.029 --> 00:07:29.490 was to figure out how to solve it and in fact 00:07:29.490 --> 00:07:32.370 there was once he came to me and said here's 00:07:32.370 --> 00:07:36.139 a problem that Nobody has solved. So I'm going 00:07:36.139 --> 00:07:39.720 to up the challenge. Don't feel frustrated if 00:07:39.720 --> 00:07:42.560 you're not able to solve it. But nobody in my 00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:45.620 decades of teaching has ever solved this problem. 00:07:45.779 --> 00:07:49.199 And I had worked up multiple problems for months 00:07:49.199 --> 00:07:52.089 on end. And then he was right. It was a very 00:07:52.089 --> 00:07:54.730 difficult problem to solve. And so the next day 00:07:54.730 --> 00:07:57.350 when I saw him, I'm like shaking my head like, 00:07:57.410 --> 00:07:59.730 nope. And he's like, no, it's not going to be 00:07:59.730 --> 00:08:03.069 that easy. It took me about two days. And I went 00:08:03.069 --> 00:08:05.529 to him and said, I solved it. And he's like, 00:08:06.129 --> 00:08:09.209 I won't believe it until you show the proof. 00:08:09.649 --> 00:08:12.569 And so we went down and we talked about how I 00:08:12.569 --> 00:08:14.980 solved the problem. And then he looked at me 00:08:14.980 --> 00:08:17.779 and said, yeah, you're probably the only one 00:08:17.779 --> 00:08:19.360 who has solved the problem in all these years. 00:08:19.540 --> 00:08:22.240 So it was kind of a foregone conclusion that 00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:25.500 I would take up mechanical engineering as the 00:08:25.500 --> 00:08:28.879 major and work on it. So he was definitely very 00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:32.600 disappointed when I decided to go into this new 00:08:32.600 --> 00:08:36.200 thing called computer science. This was an emerging 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:39.460 field at the time, you know, anywhere, but especially 00:08:39.460 --> 00:08:42.809 in India. And so I decided to go get a... a degree 00:08:42.809 --> 00:08:45.690 in computer science and engineering which was 00:08:45.690 --> 00:08:49.090 a really a good combination of you know hardware 00:08:49.090 --> 00:08:53.250 and software uh but my main interest was actually 00:08:53.250 --> 00:08:56.389 in computer architecture uh i had no interest 00:08:56.389 --> 00:08:58.769 whatsoever in software development so it was 00:08:58.769 --> 00:09:02.029 uh yeah really a complete accident that i ended 00:09:02.029 --> 00:09:05.289 up in software development uh but uh i really 00:09:05.289 --> 00:09:08.529 wanted to focus so my i had a professor in computer 00:09:08.529 --> 00:09:13.699 you

know science and engineering who was extremely 00:09:13.699 --> 00:09:16.220 interested in you know research at the undergrad 00:09:16.220 --> 00:09:19.440 level so so we started working on VLSI design 00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:23.080 and we formed a small group this was my third 00:09:23.080 --> 00:09:26.519 year of you know undergrad studies and we worked 00:09:26.519 --> 00:09:30.620 on VLSI design and we collectively published 00:09:30.620 --> 00:09:34.600 a paper actually as well related to it so all 00:09:34.600 --> 00:09:37.860 my interest was in computer architecture so when 00:09:37.860 --> 00:09:41.350 I I decided to come down to Houston for my grad 00:09:41.350 --> 00:09:44.889 studies. My master's was actually in electrical 00:09:44.889 --> 00:09:48.889 engineering, not in computer science. So I went 00:09:48.889 --> 00:09:50.909 into master's program in electrical engineering. 00:09:51.409 --> 00:09:56.909 But ironically, the professor I ended up working 00:09:56.909 --> 00:10:01.970 with on my thesis was more interested in algorithms 00:10:01.970 --> 00:10:05.830 in electrical engineering. So I ended up actually 00:10:05.830 --> 00:10:09.960 doing numerical analysis. as part of my master's 00:10:09.960 --> 00:10:13.620 thesis and then i decided if i really wanted 00:10:13.620 --> 00:10:17.440 more computer architecture Ironically, I need 00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:19.200 to shift over to computer science department. 00:10:19.740 --> 00:10:22.320 And so my PhD was actually related to computer 00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:24.980 architecture and data structures for parallel 00:10:24.980 --> 00:10:28.840 computers. So my entire interest was in computer 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:31.559 architecture. I was actually teaching courses 00:10:31.559 --> 00:10:34.340 on computer architecture initially, was a teaching 00:10:34.340 --> 00:10:37.899 assistant for it and coaching students on architecture. 00:10:38.200 --> 00:10:41.460 That's kind of where my... background at that 00:10:41.460 --> 00:10:45.779 time was. So it's a complete twist of event that 00:10:45.779 --> 00:10:47.899 I actually ended up in software development. 00:10:48.620 --> 00:10:50.860 Yeah, but not just software development. I mean, 00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:53.120 you just touched on it here briefly about that 00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:56.519 you were teaching. It sounds like you had a desire 00:10:56.519 --> 00:10:59.600 to teach early in life, too. What led you to 00:10:59.600 --> 00:11:03.379 that? Are your parents teachers? Your uncle is 00:11:03.379 --> 00:11:06.120 somehow involved in this, I read. I'm not sure 00:11:06.120 --> 00:11:08.600 how, but I know he's involved. Well, one of my 00:11:08.600 --> 00:11:12.220 uncles was a professor, but he was a professor 00:11:12.220 --> 00:11:16.980 of English back in time. to to answer your question 00:11:16.980 --> 00:11:21.519 this is kind of where you know life kind of throws 00:11:21.519 --> 00:11:25.340 things at you and and it's for you

to decide 00:11:25.340 --> 00:11:28.440 whether to duck or to grab it and throw it back 00:11:28.440 --> 00:11:32.740 i suppose so so i was a teaching assistant for 00:11:32.740 --> 00:11:36.299 a computer architecture course so my my job was 00:11:36.299 --> 00:11:40.220 at that time i was working on my phd and my job 00:11:40.220 --> 00:11:43.700 at that time was to is was to grade pretty much 00:11:43.700 --> 00:11:48.059 the, you know, homeworks and exams. And I was 00:11:48.059 --> 00:11:50.460 doing that just fine. I was grading these exams 00:11:50.460 --> 00:11:53.259 and assignments that students would turn in. 00:11:53.860 --> 00:11:59.320 And for reasons I don't understand, the professor 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:02.519 who was teaching that course walked up to me 00:12:02.519 --> 00:12:06.860 one day and said, I've got an exam for the students 00:12:06.860 --> 00:12:11.039 on Monday. And so I want you to come to the class 00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:16.850 on Wednesday. uh and just answer questions students 00:12:16.850 --> 00:12:21.269 will have so this is a a equal to a death threat 00:12:21.269 --> 00:12:26.190 if you will because uh when students uh you know 00:12:26.190 --> 00:12:28.610 i've not been to class i've just been grading 00:12:28.610 --> 00:12:32.830 the these these assignments and exams and uh 00:12:32.830 --> 00:12:37.100 i don't know what he was teaching and uh My job 00:12:37.100 --> 00:12:40.679 was to walk in front of the class and answer 00:12:40.679 --> 00:12:44.519 questions from students based on what's probably 00:12:44.519 --> 00:12:46.559 going to be in the exam, which I don't know anything 00:12:46.559 --> 00:12:50.600 about. So I walk in on Wednesday and I'm like, 00:12:50.679 --> 00:12:54.419 I'm dead. So I walk in and there are like, whatever, 00:12:54.580 --> 00:12:57.539 50, 60 students in the class looking at who's 00:12:57.539 --> 00:13:00.299 this idiot in front of us who's going to answer 00:13:00.299 --> 00:13:03.299 these questions. And they start firing questions 00:13:03.299 --> 00:13:07.899 about computer architecture. And here I am, not 00:13:07.899 --> 00:13:11.379 knowing what to expect, get really excited about 00:13:11.379 --> 00:13:13.279 the questions. I'm like, wow, this is actually 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:15.940 interesting stuff. Let me explain to you how 00:13:15.940 --> 00:13:19.820 this works. And the students are like, my goodness, 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:22.059 this is actually finally beginning to make sense. 00:13:22.580 --> 00:13:25.480 And the professor came to me and he was a little 00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:27.700 disappointed, I think, because he thought I would 00:13:27.700 --> 00:13:33.519 fail flat. And he's like. Not bad. So you actually 00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:36.720 did really well. So I'm going to put your name 00:13:36.720 --> 00:13:40.399 to the department to see if there is a teaching 00:13:40.399 --> 00:13:43.639 position for you to take up. Well, that was a 00:13:43.639 --> 00:13:45.919 good thing he said, but nothing really happened 00:13:45.919 --> 00:13:51.059 after that. But that was kind of my random opportunity 00:13:51.059 --> 00:13:53.759 to teach one day. And I walked out of the room 00:13:53.759 --> 00:13:56.299 thinking, hey, I think I can actually do this. 00:13:56.340 --> 00:13:58.860 I didn't realize I can actually teach. But that's 00:13:58.860 --> 00:14:01.720 kind of the situation where it was completely 00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:05.120 unplanned and I got thrown into it. And then, 00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:08.200 of course, as time went on, I went on to be a 00:14:08.200 --> 00:14:10.519 system administrator. That was my job after that. 00:14:10.679 --> 00:14:17.440 And I was this extremely weak puny. I was 104 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:23.100 pounds in weight back then at grad school. and 00:14:23.100 --> 00:14:26.399 you probably remember those uh digital equipment 00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:29.480 corporation they used to have these you know 00:14:29.480 --> 00:14:33.919 deck machines the monitors were maybe twice as 00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:39.139 heavy as i was and my job was to fix those machines 00:14:39.139 --> 00:14:42.639 in the night and install the operating system. 00:14:42.820 --> 00:14:45.539 They were running different flavors of Unix, 00:14:45.659 --> 00:14:48.580 and I had to install those operating systems 00:14:48.580 --> 00:14:52.460 on those machines and support the computer science 00:14:52.460 --> 00:14:56.559 faculty and researchers to have these machines. 00:14:57.259 --> 00:15:01.279 My day job was to go to school and do research 00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:04.659 for my PhD, and my night job was to fix these 00:15:04.659 --> 00:15:07.929 machines for the department. and get things running. 00:15:08.210 --> 00:15:12.549 So it was a pretty hard time trying to do those 00:15:12.549 --> 00:15:16.330 two things. What was it for you about teaching 00:15:16.330 --> 00:15:20.629 that sort of ignited that fire in you? Because 00:15:20.629 --> 00:15:24.750 I know for me, it's always been like having that 00:15:24.750 --> 00:15:29.750 aha moment with somebody and seeing them. understand 00:15:29.750 --> 00:15:32.590 what you're telling them is almost, if not more 00:15:32.590 --> 00:15:36.370 invigorating than you yourself having that moment, 00:15:36.429 --> 00:15:38.769 right? Because the best way to learn is to teach. 00:15:38.870 --> 00:15:40.850 I think you've said similar things yourself. 00:15:40.950 --> 00:15:43.429 And it's kind of like when you can share that 00:15:43.429 --> 00:15:45.529 with another person, that's how it is for me. 00:15:45.590 --> 00:15:47.429 But this interview is not about me. It's about 00:15:47.429 --> 00:15:50.250 you. What was it about you that made you want 00:15:50.250 --> 00:15:53.379 to teach? I'll be frank about it. It was desperation. 00:15:53.799 --> 00:15:59.240 So I'll be absolutely blunt about it. I would 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:02.659 be lying to you

if I said I had this desire to 00:16:02.659 --> 00:16:05.179 teach and that's what I wanted to do. But it 00:16:05.179 --> 00:16:07.600 was much wilder than that. So I was doing the 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:11.940 system administration work. And the problem is... 00:16:13.220 --> 00:16:16.419 to your point, day shift versus night shift, 00:16:16.600 --> 00:16:19.039 it actually spilled over because when you're 00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:21.480 a system administrator, you don't have the luxury 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:24.019 to say, this is when I work. You work when there's 00:16:24.019 --> 00:16:26.600 a problem, right? You work when there's a crisis. 00:16:26.919 --> 00:16:30.639 So what that really meant was... I would go to 00:16:30.639 --> 00:16:33.779 the department and I would be putting out fires. 00:16:33.820 --> 00:16:36.220 And we had some really good staff at the system 00:16:36.220 --> 00:16:39.059 administration. So by any means, I was not the 00:16:39.059 --> 00:16:41.240 only person. There were like three or four of 00:16:41.240 --> 00:16:43.379 us. We would just split the work and continuously 00:16:43.379 --> 00:16:46.259 get things done. But still, there was a lot of 00:16:46.259 --> 00:16:48.919 work to do. So that meant I worked the night 00:16:48.919 --> 00:16:52.179 shift. I worked the day shift, which really meant. 00:16:52.889 --> 00:16:55.289 that I had really very little time to do my research. 00:16:55.509 --> 00:16:58.490 My whole purpose of being there is to, you know, 00:16:58.490 --> 00:17:00.450 I eventually want to graduate, get a PhD and 00:17:00.450 --> 00:17:03.409 move on. So I was doing my research. And the 00:17:03.409 --> 00:17:05.990 problem is you're so tired after spending the 00:17:05.990 --> 00:17:09.390 night time and then the daytime also. And then 00:17:09.390 --> 00:17:11.289 you have to sit down and take your courses and 00:17:11.289 --> 00:17:13.789 then you have to do your research as well. So 00:17:13.789 --> 00:17:16.440 I went to the department chair and I said, I've 00:17:16.440 --> 00:17:21.680 got a request for you. Can we just pretend that 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:25.619 I can move away from this? I no longer want to 00:17:25.619 --> 00:17:28.400 be a system administrator. I want to go focus 00:17:28.400 --> 00:17:31.259 on my research. So if I can just have my night 00:17:31.259 --> 00:17:34.960 back, I can sleep actually. I can take my daytime 00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:37.849 to do my research. I don't want to be doing this 00:17:37.849 --> 00:17:40.690 system administrator. And he looked at me and 00:17:40.690 --> 00:17:43.549 said, I want you to go back to your desk and 00:17:43.549 --> 00:17:46.089 continue to work or I will fire you right now. 00:17:46.210 --> 00:17:49.789 So that was a very, very clear statement as to 00:17:49.789 --> 00:17:52.390 what the expectation was. So I went back to being 00:17:52.390 --> 00:17:55.250 my system administrator for a while. Now, this 00:17:55.250 --> 00:17:58.210 is where, again, life kind of throws things at 00:17:58.210 --> 00:18:04.309 you. There is this new language that was introduced 00:18:04.309 --> 00:18:10.349 into the academic world called C++. So I'll be 00:18:10.349 --> 00:18:15.150 absolutely frank. I was not a programmer. Sure, 00:18:15.289 --> 00:18:18.890 I wrote code, but I wouldn't call myself a programmer 00:18:18.890 --> 00:18:21.890 writing code. I wrote code for my research, right? 00:18:21.970 --> 00:18:24.549 Minimally what was needed to get my research 00:18:24.549 --> 00:18:27.930 running. And I had, you know, sure, I had some 00:18:27.930 --> 00:18:31.380 experience in C. but I have no clue what C++ 00:18:31.380 --> 00:18:35.859 was. And so the department sends out an email 00:18:35.859 --> 00:18:39.079 saying, we're introducing this new course on 00:18:39.079 --> 00:18:43.319 C++. We need somebody to teach it. And I am... 00:18:43.660 --> 00:18:46.539 desperate not to do system administration anymore. 00:18:46.900 --> 00:18:51.299 So I threw in my name and said, I want to teach 00:18:51.299 --> 00:18:54.539 C++. Well, the only problem is they never asked 00:18:54.539 --> 00:18:58.099 me, do you know C++? So I said, I want to teach 00:18:58.099 --> 00:19:04.640 C++. And this was in the fall semester. And so 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:07.500 I was like eagerly waiting for their decision. 00:19:07.700 --> 00:19:11.279 And remember, I'm at the... not even at the bottom 00:19:11.279 --> 00:19:14.259 of the food chain. I'm not non -existent because 00:19:14.259 --> 00:19:17.220 as a teaching assistant, well, as a system administrator, 00:19:17.640 --> 00:19:21.400 you have no status whatsoever. You are invisible. 00:19:21.759 --> 00:19:27.799 And then a tenured, very highly respected faculty 00:19:27.799 --> 00:19:31.440 member said, I want to teach this new course 00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:35.859 on C++. And I'm like, darn it. There goes my 00:19:35.859 --> 00:19:38.819 chance of escaping system administration. I tried. 00:19:38.980 --> 00:19:41.000 I'll go continue to do my system administration. 00:19:41.619 --> 00:19:45.180 And this is where I cannot explain why this happened. 00:19:45.420 --> 00:19:49.519 And so he was assigned to teach this course in 00:19:49.519 --> 00:19:52.440 the spring semester starting in January. And 00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:57.539 about November 15th, for some reason, he says, 00:19:57.740 --> 00:20:02.819 yeah, I'm not going to teach it. So at this point, 00:20:02.980 --> 00:20:05.460 there were only two people who volunteered to 00:20:05.460 --> 00:20:09.119 teach it. This full -time, highly reputed, tenured 00:20:09.119 --> 00:20:12.720 faculty and this unknown dude who has got a very 00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:16.039 complicated name and, you know, who is a system 00:20:16.039 --> 00:20:19.480 administrator, right? And so the department looked 00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:23.220 around and said, oh my gosh, he refused to teach 00:20:23.220 -->

00:20:25.740 now, but we already have this course scheduled. 00:20:26.460 --> 00:20:29.240 So they turned around and said, you, you're going 00:20:29.240 --> 00:20:31.720 to teach the course. So I called a few friends 00:20:31.720 --> 00:20:34.059 and said, hey, I've been asked to teach this 00:20:34.059 --> 00:20:37.119 course on C++. And they said, what do you know 00:20:37.119 --> 00:20:40.900 about C++? I said, I know it's got three letters 00:20:40.900 --> 00:20:43.700 in it, but two of them are operators, looks like. 00:20:43.980 --> 00:20:46.460 And then they said, what do you know about inheritance? 00:20:47.019 --> 00:20:48.980 I said, I don't think there's going to be much 00:20:48.980 --> 00:20:52.200 left for inheritance in my family. And they're 00:20:52.200 --> 00:20:54.359 like, dude, do you know what polymorphism is? 00:20:54.460 --> 00:20:57.289 I'm like, poly what? And they said, we've got 00:20:57.289 --> 00:20:59.930 a recommendation for you. Go to the department 00:20:59.930 --> 00:21:03.529 and tell them that you genuinely made a mistake 00:21:03.529 --> 00:21:08.289 because people who know this very well cannot 00:21:08.289 --> 00:21:11.410 handle it. You are the biggest idiot we know 00:21:11.410 --> 00:21:14.069 who wanted to teach something you don't know. 00:21:14.750 --> 00:21:17.750 And I'm sitting and scratching my head. You know 00:21:17.750 --> 00:21:21.430 what? I don't know what this is, but I've come 00:21:21.430 --> 00:21:25.460 this far in life doing stuff. That I don't know. 00:21:25.880 --> 00:21:31.079 That's what I am, a researcher. So I went out, 00:21:31.180 --> 00:21:34.039 bought a ton of books. And you got to remember, 00:21:34.180 --> 00:21:36.079 right, this is before the time of internet, as 00:21:36.079 --> 00:21:41.559 we know. And I get, you know, tons of book. And 00:21:41.559 --> 00:21:48.940 from 4 a .m. till 10 p .m., I sit down and start 00:21:48.940 --> 00:21:53.599 coding in C++, not just reading stuff. But I'm 00:21:53.599 --> 00:21:56.920 coding away because this is the winter break 00:21:56.920 --> 00:22:02.640 and we have a month. And I said, I've got a month 00:22:02.640 --> 00:22:07.240 to learn and master C++. So I started writing 00:22:07.240 --> 00:22:11.799 code and creating applications with C++ every 00:22:11.799 --> 00:22:14.900 day, reading as much as I need to know, and then 00:22:14.900 --> 00:22:18.500 start writing code. And within about 20 days, 00:22:18.579 --> 00:22:22.750 I just mastered the heck out of it. And we went 00:22:22.750 --> 00:22:24.970 to start teaching the course and students in 00:22:24.970 --> 00:22:27.789 the class, you know, were kind of little, you 00:22:27.789 --> 00:22:30.349 know, not sure, you know, what's this dude going 00:22:30.349 --> 00:22:33.750 to do? And they're like sitting up and I start 00:22:33.750 --> 00:22:37.009 teaching. I can immediately see them sitting 00:22:37.009 --> 00:22:39.470 up and they're like, I better start paying attention 00:22:39.470 --> 00:22:42.670 to it. And about a month into it, a student came 00:22:42.670 --> 00:22:46.440 to me and said. You are so darn good at it. How 00:22:46.440 --> 00:22:49.380 long have you been programming in C++? I said 00:22:49.380 --> 00:22:53.420 about two weeks more than you. He said, that's 00:22:53.420 --> 00:22:55.940 funny. Come on, tell me the truth. And I said, 00:22:55.960 --> 00:22:59.180 I just did. I've really known this only for two 00:22:59.180 --> 00:23:01.700 more weeks than you do. And he's like, I cannot 00:23:01.700 --> 00:23:04.140 believe it. You're lying to me because you're 00:23:04.140 --> 00:23:06.099 so good at it. You could not have known this 00:23:06.099 --> 00:23:09.019 for two weeks before I did. And I'm like, seriously, 00:23:09.400 --> 00:23:12.460 it's not about, you know, what you teach. It's 00:23:12.460 --> 00:23:15.779 about how well you know it. And I realized the 00:23:15.779 --> 00:23:20.140 only way I can succeed is to master and get out. 00:23:20.420 --> 00:23:25.000 And so I just invested from 4 a .m. to 10 p .m. 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:28.240 every single day, nothing else happening other 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:30.279 than, you know, taking care of food and hygiene 00:23:30.279 --> 00:23:33.500 and sitting and working for about three, four 00:23:33.500 --> 00:23:38.380 weeks and then just absolutely nailing it. and 00:23:38.380 --> 00:23:41.259 and pretty much i introduced the course and i 00:23:41.259 --> 00:23:43.599 offered the course for about 15 years after that 00:23:43.599 --> 00:23:47.740 and so when i graduated i said hey i really like 00:23:47.740 --> 00:23:50.599 teaching looks like i'm not terrible at it do 00:23:50.599 --> 00:23:52.380 you mind if i continue to teach it and they're 00:23:52.380 --> 00:23:55.119 like oh please do take it that that takes us 00:23:55.119 --> 00:23:57.660 away from having to look for an instructor so 00:23:57.660 --> 00:24:00.599 i was a teaching assistant teaching the course 00:24:01.079 --> 00:24:05.500 as a teaching fellow, so to say. And then when 00:24:05.500 --> 00:24:08.299 I graduated, they just turned me into a lecturer 00:24:08.299 --> 00:24:10.940 and I continued to teach for another, you know, 00:24:10.960 --> 00:24:15.740 whatever, 12 years or so. And until I decided, 00:24:15.880 --> 00:24:18.299 you know, it's time to teach other courses and 00:24:18.299 --> 00:24:20.359 I started introducing other courses after that. 00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:23.180 But I've been always a part -time instructor, 00:24:23.279 --> 00:24:26.349 you know, and teaching. But that's kind of how 00:24:26.349 --> 00:24:29.269 I started accidentally by out of desperation 00:24:29.269 --> 00:24:32.670 not to do system administration anymore so I 00:24:32.670 --> 00:24:35.170 can focus on my research and graduate. And I 00:24:35.170 --> 00:24:37.789 did. So it really gave me the time not only to 00:24:37.789 --> 00:24:40.150 teach the course, but spend

enough time on my 00:24:40.150 --> 00:24:43.869 research. And I graduated within the next few 00:24:43.869 --> 00:24:47.109 years and then moved on to other things. How 00:24:47.109 --> 00:24:49.930 do you go from teaching, you know, standing up 00:24:49.930 --> 00:24:52.269 in front of people and lecturing and putting 00:24:52.269 --> 00:24:56.690 lesson plans together to? Writing books. I mean, 00:24:56.710 --> 00:24:59.089 I can't even say to writing a book because you 00:24:59.089 --> 00:25:01.269 have more books than I could probably count. 00:25:01.369 --> 00:25:03.569 Definitely more than I can count on one hand. 00:25:03.630 --> 00:25:05.769 How did you make that transition? And was it 00:25:05.769 --> 00:25:09.450 difficult? I don't think it was difficult, but 00:25:09.450 --> 00:25:15.740 by the time I had, you know. So my interest was 00:25:15.740 --> 00:25:19.339 in the industry, not in pure academics. So as 00:25:19.339 --> 00:25:22.920 soon as I got my PhD, even though I was teaching 00:25:22.920 --> 00:25:24.759 part -time at the university, I was working in 00:25:24.759 --> 00:25:28.720 the industry. And one thing led to another thing, 00:25:28.859 --> 00:25:33.250 and I started speaking in conferences. And then, 00:25:33.250 --> 00:25:36.630 you know, while working as a full time and then 00:25:36.630 --> 00:25:39.869 I quit my day job and I started a company and 00:25:39.869 --> 00:25:42.910 I was doing consulting and training and mentoring 00:25:42.910 --> 00:25:46.170 in the in the industry, speaking in conferences. 00:25:46.170 --> 00:25:48.970 And so this was kind of like a nice, natural 00:25:48.970 --> 00:25:52.470 transitioning. But I had never written a book. 00:25:52.650 --> 00:25:57.690 And but I had I was speaking in conferences where 00:25:57.690 --> 00:26:02.089 there were this amazing experts. who have written 00:26:02.089 --> 00:26:06.779 not just books, but very well -known books. Dave 00:26:06.779 --> 00:26:09.579 Thomas, the pragmatic programmer. You had Jason 00:26:09.579 --> 00:26:14.200 Hunter, who wrote the Java servlet specification, 00:26:14.640 --> 00:26:19.900 that famous kettle book from him. You had Bruce 00:26:19.900 --> 00:26:22.700 Tate, who had written, at that time, more recently, 00:26:23.019 --> 00:26:27.799 Bitter Java and Bitter EJB. So I was the non 00:26:27.799 --> 00:26:32.099 -author sitting among these authors. So it's, 00:26:32.099 --> 00:26:34.200 again, the bottom of the food chain, if you will. 00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:40.019 So I was kind of thinking, should I maybe write 00:26:40.019 --> 00:26:42.920 a book? Because there's all these people around 00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:45.059 you who have written books. Maybe that's a natural 00:26:45.059 --> 00:26:48.619 thing to do, to write a book. And so I went to 00:26:48.619 --> 00:26:52.220 a good friend and I said, hey, I'm thinking, 00:26:52.299 --> 00:26:55.220 should I write a book? And his first question 00:26:55.220 --> 00:26:59.029 to

me was, how's your business? And I said, my 00:26:59.029 --> 00:27:03.009 business is great. I'm busier than I could be. 00:27:03.130 --> 00:27:06.890 I don't have much free time at all. And he said, 00:27:07.170 --> 00:27:11.910 a book is a giant size business card. And if 00:27:11.910 --> 00:27:14.190 you're writing a book, that's going to bring 00:27:14.190 --> 00:27:16.650 you more business. But if you already are doing 00:27:16.650 --> 00:27:19.190 great in business, why do you want to waste your 00:27:19.190 --> 00:27:21.569 time? Don't worry about it. I'm like, thanks 00:27:21.569 --> 00:27:23.809 for the advice. I wouldn't be writing a book. 00:27:23.990 --> 00:27:27.539 So I dropped the idea of writing the book. And 00:27:27.539 --> 00:27:32.900 so I kind of went along. And so then the fundamental 00:27:32.900 --> 00:27:36.339 for me to write a book is, this is what I will 00:27:36.339 --> 00:27:40.220 distill this down to. And that is, I want to 00:27:40.220 --> 00:27:43.500 write a book because I've got a story to tell. 00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:48.660 That's all it boils down to. So while I was not 00:27:48.660 --> 00:27:52.059 keen on writing any book at all, I was sitting 00:27:52.059 --> 00:27:55.450 at my desk one day. And I have this habit of 00:27:55.450 --> 00:27:59.210 speaking in local user groups. So I speak in 00:27:59.210 --> 00:28:01.470 a Java user group. At the time, I was living 00:28:01.470 --> 00:28:04.130 in Houston, so I would speak in the Houston Java 00:28:04.130 --> 00:28:06.329 user group, but I would also speak in the Houston 00:28:06.329 --> 00:28:09.349 .NET user group. And as I was sitting down, I 00:28:09.349 --> 00:28:11.869 was thinking, I want to speak at the Houston 00:28:11.869 --> 00:28:18.589 .NET user group, HDNUG, and what topic would 00:28:18.589 --> 00:28:23.619 I talk about? And I realized... I wanted to come 00:28:23.619 --> 00:28:25.920 up with a fairly unique topic that'll be valuable 00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:29.279 to the audience, but not run -of -the -mill that 00:28:29.279 --> 00:28:32.099 you would find from anybody else. So I thought, 00:28:32.220 --> 00:28:38.140 what if I talk about maybe the fundamental flaws 00:28:38.140 --> 00:28:43.579 in the .NET framework? And so this would be a 00:28:43.579 --> 00:28:46.920 nice critique kind of a talk where you illustrate 00:28:46.920 --> 00:28:49.920 the issues you run into as a programmer, but 00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:52.660 these issues are so fundamental. So I wrote an 00:28:52.660 --> 00:28:57.059 abstract and I sent it off to the user group 00:28:57.059 --> 00:28:58.940 and said, here's my abstract. If you would allow 00:28:58.940 --> 00:29:00.759 me to talk on this topic, I would be delighted 00:29:00.759 --> 00:29:05.759 to. And the minute I hit the send, I was like, 00:29:05.839 --> 00:29:09.380 wait. This may not just be a good talk to give. 00:29:09.859 --> 00:29:13.640 What if I write this as a book? And I immediately, 00:29:13.839 --> 00:29:16.160 you know, researched a little bit. By this time, 00:29:16.180 --> 00:29:19.140 the world has intranet. So I researched a little 00:29:19.140 --> 00:29:22.839 bit and I found that there's no book on the topic. 00:29:23.579 --> 00:29:28.680 And call me crazy, but this thought was so overwhelming, 00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:33.059 I immediately started writing the book at that 00:29:33.059 --> 00:29:39.400 minute. I dropped everything and I wrote the 00:29:39.400 --> 00:29:43.799 first draft of the book in about two weeks. And 00:29:43.799 --> 00:29:46.839 then I reached over to a friend of mine and said, 00:29:46.940 --> 00:29:50.210 hey, I've got this book idea. Can you put me 00:29:50.210 --> 00:29:53.210 in touch with the publisher? And he said, I'm 00:29:53.210 --> 00:29:56.329 going to connect you to O 'Reilly. And I remember 00:29:56.329 --> 00:29:58.589 his email. Even now, it kind of gives me goosebumps. 00:29:58.890 --> 00:30:02.289 His email subject was connecting the dots. And 00:30:02.289 --> 00:30:06.930 he is copying me and connecting one of the editors 00:30:06.930 --> 00:30:09.710 at O 'Reilly and said, here you go. I know this 00:30:09.710 --> 00:30:12.509 guy, but he's excited about writing a book. And 00:30:12.509 --> 00:30:14.950 that person said, yeah, I don't deal with this, 00:30:14.990 --> 00:30:16.630 but I'm going to forward you to the person who's 00:30:16.630 --> 00:30:19.470 going to work on it. So they came back and said, 00:30:19.650 --> 00:30:23.609 hey, can you send us a proposal? And I did. And 00:30:23.609 --> 00:30:27.849 a month went by and I'm on the phone and the 00:30:27.849 --> 00:30:30.869 editor calls me and said, good news. Congratulations. 00:30:31.130 --> 00:30:34.109 Your book has been accepted. Now let's talk about. 00:30:34.780 --> 00:30:37.980 getting the book written and you can, you know, 00:30:37.980 --> 00:30:41.839 let's put a timeline on it. And I said, oh, that's 00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:43.359 not a problem. I can send you the book right 00:30:43.359 --> 00:30:46.200 away. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. We got 00:30:46.200 --> 00:30:48.119 everything we need to approve your proposal. 00:30:48.359 --> 00:30:50.519 Your book has been accepted, but let's talk about 00:30:50.519 --> 00:30:53.180 writing the book right now. And I said, that's 00:30:53.180 --> 00:30:54.480 what I'm saying. I'll send you the book right 00:30:54.480 --> 00:30:56.940 now. And he's like, no, we are miscommunicating. 00:30:57.519 --> 00:31:00.779 And I said, well, actually, if you don't mind, 00:31:00.880 --> 00:31:03.519 can you just wait for a minute? I'm like, he's 00:31:03.519 --> 00:31:06.039 like, sure. And then I emailed the book to him 00:31:06.039 --> 00:31:07.680 and said, take a look at your email now, then 00:31:07.680 --> 00:31:11.019 let's talk. And then he says, no way. You're 00:31:11.019 --> 00:31:13.200 not supposed to write a book and contact us. 00:31:13.460 --> 00:31:15.660 You're supposed

to submit a proposal. We should 00:31:15.660 --> 00:31:18.380 accept it. Then we should nag you for three years 00:31:18.380 --> 00:31:21.859 to write a book. How is this possible that you've 00:31:21.859 --> 00:31:23.880 written the book? I said, I'm sorry, but I've 00:31:23.880 --> 00:31:25.140 never written a book, so I don't know what to 00:31:25.140 --> 00:31:28.539 do. So I wrote the book. And I've realized maybe 00:31:28.539 --> 00:31:31.119 that's the best way to write books. So ever since. 00:31:31.680 --> 00:31:33.839 Almost all the books I've written, that's exactly 00:31:33.839 --> 00:31:36.359 what I've done. I would just take two weeks and 00:31:36.359 --> 00:31:39.819 write the first draft and then approach the publisher 00:31:39.819 --> 00:31:42.519 and say, hey, would this be interesting to you? 00:31:42.559 --> 00:31:46.039 If it is, let's just rush through this and not 00:31:46.039 --> 00:31:48.900 rushing as in poor quality, but putting the emphasis 00:31:48.900 --> 00:31:52.180 on getting it out. And hey, the first draft is 00:31:52.180 --> 00:31:53.880 there. I'm going to start rewriting the book 00:31:53.880 --> 00:31:56.579 now with the help of my editor and let's just 00:31:56.579 --> 00:31:59.359 publish this. So almost all the books I've written 00:31:59.359 --> 00:32:02.519 has been that kind of mode, get the book written 00:32:02.519 --> 00:32:05.680 first draft in two weeks, and then get the book 00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:09.319 accepted, and then start iterating one more time 00:32:09.319 --> 00:32:12.079 with the editor and then publish it, you know, 00:32:12.079 --> 00:32:15.420 four to six months maximum to get it out. So 00:32:15.420 --> 00:32:17.960 what year was that first book that you worked 00:32:17.960 --> 00:32:23.549 on? 2006. Wow. 20 years ago. See, I can do that 00:32:23.549 --> 00:32:26.289 math. That's very easy math for me. I'm so glad. 00:32:26.569 --> 00:32:29.650 Yeah. I didn't even realize it's been 20 years. 00:32:29.829 --> 00:32:32.569 That's kind of scary, actually. I know. Yeah. 00:32:32.869 --> 00:32:35.509 And so that was my kind of the first book. And 00:32:35.509 --> 00:32:37.710 I ended up actually publishing two books about 00:32:37.710 --> 00:32:40.269 the same time. And that was the first book on 00:32:40.269 --> 00:32:45.460 .NET gotchas for O 'Reilly. Once I had just sent 00:32:45.460 --> 00:32:49.279 that book for publication and it was going through 00:32:49.279 --> 00:32:52.019 the production cycle, I was kind of thinking, 00:32:52.180 --> 00:32:54.559 what do I want to do now, now that I'm almost 00:32:54.559 --> 00:32:58.019 a published author, that the thirst to write 00:32:58.019 --> 00:33:01.839 the book is in you? And then I again said to 00:33:01.839 --> 00:33:04.359 myself, it's all about telling a story. I've 00:33:04.359 --> 00:33:08.099 got a story to tell. And this was about 2006 00:33:08.099 --> 00:33:11.579 timeframe. And I said to myself, what if I can 00:33:11.579

--> 00:33:17.279 write a book? about agile development. And not 00:33:17.279 --> 00:33:20.759 the regular stuff that you read in every book, 00:33:20.940 --> 00:33:25.119 but what if I... narrate my experience as what 00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:28.539 does it mean for me as a programmer to be agile? 00:33:28.940 --> 00:33:32.859 And I had just formed a company a couple of years 00:33:32.859 --> 00:33:36.720 earlier. Incidentally, the name of the company 00:33:36.720 --> 00:33:42.799 was Agile Developer. And this was purely a coincidence 00:33:42.799 --> 00:33:47.130 because I was firing myself from my company I 00:33:47.130 --> 00:33:51.549 had founded back in 1998. And for various different 00:33:51.549 --> 00:33:53.490 reasons, I decided it was no longer the right 00:33:53.490 --> 00:33:55.289 thing for me. I wanted to leave my own company. 00:33:55.589 --> 00:33:58.710 So I was walking out of my company. And so I 00:33:58.710 --> 00:34:01.269 was thinking, what should I call my new company, 00:34:01.410 --> 00:34:03.670 which was going to be a much smaller one. And 00:34:03.670 --> 00:34:05.190 I was tossing around names and said, what if 00:34:05.190 --> 00:34:08.980 I call my company as... agile developer and and 00:34:08.980 --> 00:34:12.980 so now i thought what if i title a book as practices 00:34:12.980 --> 00:34:16.320 for practices of an agile developer and that 00:34:16.320 --> 00:34:19.539 was kind of the little aha moment like what if 00:34:19.539 --> 00:34:23.599 i talk about a story of what agile means to a 00:34:23.599 --> 00:34:26.300 programmer and and so that's kind of where the 00:34:26.300 --> 00:34:28.860 practice of an agile developer came from which 00:34:28.860 --> 00:34:31.619 i co -authored with andy hunt of pragmatic programmer 00:34:31.619 --> 00:34:36.489 but but that was my almost i would say .NET got 00:34:36.489 --> 00:34:39.550 used and a practice of an agile developer were 00:34:39.550 --> 00:34:42.590 almost published around the same time in 2007 00:34:42.590 --> 00:34:45.869 timeframe. What would you describe, or should 00:34:45.869 --> 00:34:49.690 I say, how would you describe what an agile developer 00:34:49.690 --> 00:34:53.230 is? I mean, to our listeners who may not understand, 00:34:53.489 --> 00:34:55.929 I mean, I barely understand agile development. 00:34:55.969 --> 00:34:59.230 I've been a developer for... 30 some odd years 00:34:59.230 --> 00:35:02.190 or whatever. In a nutshell, what is it? What 00:35:02.190 --> 00:35:04.889 is the methodology? Why is it good? What are 00:35:04.889 --> 00:35:08.530 the pros, cons? I'm going to distill this down 00:35:08.530 --> 00:35:12.250 to something that I think is unfortunately has 00:35:12.250 --> 00:35:15.869 been lost in the noise. And incidentally, if 00:35:15.869 --> 00:35:18.030 we go back to the Agile Manifesto and look at 00:35:18.030 --> 00:35:21.090 what they had said, it is a striking to what 00:35:21.090 --> 00:35:23.489 they said to what... the world has gone to do 00:35:23.489 --> 00:35:26.690 unfortunately but but rather than agile developer 00:35:26.690 --> 00:35:29.429 let me change the words a little bit what does 00:35:29.429 --> 00:35:33.329 it mean about agile development and i'm going 00:35:33.329 --> 00:35:40.130 to say agile development is feedback driven development. 00:35:40.590 --> 00:35:44.090 That's what it fundamentally comes down to. Agile 00:35:44.090 --> 00:35:46.289 development is feedback -driven development. 00:35:46.630 --> 00:35:48.250 You know, Tammy, I'll tell you one thing that 00:35:48.250 --> 00:35:52.230 surprised me. I was teaching, co -teaching a 00:35:52.230 --> 00:35:56.510 course with a colleague at the university. He's 00:35:56.510 --> 00:36:00.369 a full -time faculty, a tenured faculty. But 00:36:00.369 --> 00:36:03.449 I wanted to co -teach. One of the reasons was... 00:36:03.739 --> 00:36:06.039 this initiative of pairing and collaboration. 00:36:06.360 --> 00:36:09.420 So I wanted to teach with him. And he said, I 00:36:09.420 --> 00:36:11.280 don't know nothing about agile development. I 00:36:11.280 --> 00:36:13.099 said, that's good that you're the right person 00:36:13.099 --> 00:36:15.559 then to teach the course with me. So we offered 00:36:15.559 --> 00:36:20.420 a course using all these good practices, sustainable 00:36:20.420 --> 00:36:23.420 practices. And we did that for about two years. 00:36:23.800 --> 00:36:27.000 And one day he came to me and said, I finally 00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:30.780 get it. And I'm like, what did you get? And he 00:36:30.780 --> 00:36:34.269 said, agile development has nothing to do with 00:36:34.269 --> 00:36:37.289 software development it is about way of life 00:36:37.289 --> 00:36:41.320 and i'm like yes you nailed it and he said To 00:36:41.320 --> 00:36:45.360 me, I am doing research and I can be agile in 00:36:45.360 --> 00:36:48.860 my research as well. Because if I'm able to get 00:36:48.860 --> 00:36:52.739 the feedback and steer where we are going, then 00:36:52.739 --> 00:36:56.380 we get more results out of this than going in 00:36:56.380 --> 00:36:58.659 the dark and working on stuff for a long time 00:36:58.659 --> 00:37:01.619 without knowing what we are getting out of it. 00:37:01.940 --> 00:37:04.920 So to me, the fundamental is that feedback -driven 00:37:04.920 --> 00:37:08.719 development. And incidentally... The whole essence 00:37:08.719 --> 00:37:12.739 of agile development is about adaptive planning. 00:37:13.119 --> 00:37:16.539 This was the most infamous social media post 00:37:16.539 --> 00:37:19.760 I've ever made. I'm a little embarrassed to talk 00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:25.280 about this, but I was at... At lunch with my 00:37:25.280 --> 00:37:28.500 family, my children are all grown up adults now, 00:37:28.599 --> 00:37:30.260 but this was when they were really, really small. 00:37:30.739 --> 00:37:33.739 And we were traveling. I think we were in Canada 00:37:33.739 -->

00:37:37.139 on a vacation. But unfortunately, my brain is 00:37:37.139 --> 00:37:38.980 wired to programming. I constantly think about 00:37:38.980 --> 00:37:43.659 it. So we're having lunch and my two boys were 00:37:43.659 --> 00:37:46.659 sitting on my either side with my wife was sitting 00:37:46.659 --> 00:37:49.539 across the table. And as we were just talking 00:37:49.539 --> 00:37:52.820 about things and suddenly my little thread in 00:37:52.909 --> 00:37:57.710 mind, I kind of pulled my phone out and I started 00:37:57.710 --> 00:38:01.409 typing a social media post. And I just quietly 00:38:01.409 --> 00:38:04.110 typed it. I didn't draw attention to it. And 00:38:04.110 --> 00:38:09.150 as I was typing it, my elder son decided to kind 00:38:09.150 --> 00:38:11.690 of take a peek at it and looked at it. And his 00:38:11.690 --> 00:38:15.630 face goes red and says, oh my gosh, dad, you're 00:38:15.630 --> 00:38:19.300 not supposed to say such things. And as a parent, 00:38:19.460 --> 00:38:21.960 I think one of the missions of a parent is to 00:38:21.960 --> 00:38:24.139 do what children tell you not to do and embarrass 00:38:24.139 --> 00:38:28.719 them. So I went ahead and hit the button. I posted 00:38:28.719 --> 00:38:31.619 it right then. He was actually panicked. And 00:38:31.619 --> 00:38:33.480 he looked at my wife and said, I can't believe 00:38:33.480 --> 00:38:37.460 what your dad just did. And she's like, OK, what 00:38:37.460 --> 00:38:40.099 did you do? And I showed her the post and she 00:38:40.099 --> 00:38:43.420 rolled her eyes. the next thing you know it gets 00:38:43.420 --> 00:38:46.619 you know reposted uh thousands of times and my 00:38:46.619 --> 00:38:48.920 son is like i can't believe that actually people 00:38:48.920 --> 00:38:51.579 are reposting this so what i posted in the social 00:38:51.579 --> 00:38:57.480 media post was that i said um something to the 00:38:57.480 --> 00:39:02.360 effect i said i haven't asked her i have set 00:39:02.360 --> 00:39:06.940 the wedding date but have not asked her out yet 00:39:08.079 --> 00:39:12.199 This is how software, these are the words of 00:39:12.199 --> 00:39:16.139 a software project manager. And so the point 00:39:16.139 --> 00:39:19.079 I wanted to emphasize was, it's how ridiculous 00:39:19.079 --> 00:39:22.199 to set a wedding date and not ask somebody out 00:39:22.199 --> 00:39:25.079 to see if they are even remotely interested in 00:39:25.079 --> 00:39:30.019 any romantic relationship at all. And that to 00:39:30.019 --> 00:39:32.119 me is like how projects are unfortunately being 00:39:32.119 --> 00:39:35.400 done, is we set the deadline, we set the scope, 00:39:35.579 --> 00:39:38.630 we set... everything and then we claim we are 00:39:38.630 --> 00:39:41.730 agile what is there to be agile about it so so 00:39:41.730 --> 00:39:45.090 to me the key here is adaptive planning so so 00:39:45.090 --> 00:39:50.050 do and the word plan is very interesting word 00:39:50.050 --> 00:39:53.489 because the word plan in english is both a noun 00:39:53.489 --> 00:39:59.039 and a verb And as a noun, the word is pretty 00:39:59.039 --> 00:40:01.960 useless because the minute you create a plan, 00:40:02.300 --> 00:40:07.519 it becomes obsolete. So plan as a noun is a risky 00:40:07.519 --> 00:40:12.159 word, but plan as a verb is very powerful because 00:40:12.159 --> 00:40:14.960 you want to plan and you want to continuously, 00:40:14.980 --> 00:40:18.760 actively evolve your planning as you go through. 00:40:18.940 --> 00:40:21.840 Much like what I think it was Eisenhower who 00:40:21.840 --> 00:40:26.420 said, Plans are nothing, but planning is everything, 00:40:26.639 --> 00:40:30.559 he said. So true. And that is the spirit of agility, 00:40:30.900 --> 00:40:35.119 is that we create a plan, but we then come back 00:40:35.119 --> 00:40:38.659 and apply the feedback and say, based on what 00:40:38.659 --> 00:40:42.599 we know so far, how can we adjust the plan so 00:40:42.599 --> 00:40:46.280 that we can be more realistic rather than being 00:40:46.280 --> 00:40:50.300 dogmatic about things that we looked at at one 00:40:50.300 --> 00:40:53.539 point in time? This is the spirit of agility, 00:40:53.920 --> 00:40:57.340 even though a lot of organizations and teams 00:40:57.340 --> 00:41:00.579 sadly have forgotten that, you know, essence 00:41:00.579 --> 00:41:03.699 of agility and have gone on to beat the drums 00:41:03.699 --> 00:41:07.500 around various process and practices. But to 00:41:07.500 --> 00:41:09.519 me, that is the fundamental. And that's what 00:41:09.519 --> 00:41:13.300 I think about every single day, not just in programming, 00:41:13.539 --> 00:41:17.639 but in every aspect of life is how can we be 00:41:17.639 --> 00:41:20.860 adaptive? So it's not about what we set out, 00:41:21.099 --> 00:41:23.920 but what the reality shows us and what can we 00:41:23.920 --> 00:41:27.000 do based on what we know right now, I think makes 00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:30.619 a big difference. Absolutely. Now, do you take 00:41:30.619 --> 00:41:35.650 this agile? sort of methodology into the lesson 00:41:35.650 --> 00:41:38.429 plans that you make and the books that you author 00:41:38.429 --> 00:41:42.989 at all? It definitely is part of it. You know, 00:41:42.989 --> 00:41:46.110 just to give you an example of this, one of my 00:41:46.110 --> 00:41:49.929 very cherished moments, so these are things you 00:41:49.929 --> 00:41:52.210 would probably, you know, not forget in life 00:41:52.210 --> 00:41:57.739 because these are such unique moments, but I 00:41:57.739 --> 00:42:00.900 was writing a book and I was on this, you know, 00:42:00.900 --> 00:42:04.159 rewriting the chapters mode. And we really wanted 00:42:04.159 --> 00:42:07.039 to get this book out very, very quickly. And 00:42:07.039 --> 00:42:09.119 I was working very closely with the editor. And 00:42:09.119 --> 00:42:11.940 as we were going through

this, I wake up in the 00:42:11.940 --> 00:42:15.519 morning one day. And again, this is my rigorous 00:42:15.519 --> 00:42:17.940 schedule. Usually my day starts about 3 .30 in 00:42:17.940 --> 00:42:21.519 the morning. And I wake up early when the whole 00:42:21.519 --> 00:42:24.179 family is quiet. There's nobody awake. I sit 00:42:24.179 --> 00:42:27.239 down. I wanted to write something. And that morning, 00:42:27.380 --> 00:42:29.880 I was planning on writing a particular chapter, 00:42:29.940 --> 00:42:35.079 and suddenly I'm like, wait, I just have a thought 00:42:35.079 --> 00:42:38.809 about... illustrating a particular design concern 00:42:38.809 --> 00:42:42.809 and how this language can you know really address 00:42:42.809 --> 00:42:46.110 the design so i abandoned everything i had for 00:42:46.110 --> 00:42:49.070 that day i just sat there and wrote this chapter 00:42:49.070 --> 00:42:52.530 that didn't even exist in my mind until i woke 00:42:52.530 --> 00:42:56.190 up that morning and then by afternoon i sent 00:42:56.190 --> 00:42:59.090 this draft to the editor and said change of plan 00:42:59.090 --> 00:43:01.449 i just thought of this new chapter i just want 00:43:01.449 --> 00:43:04.369 to get your feeling for it and and the response 00:43:04.369 --> 00:43:08.210 was this is the best chapter i've ever read and 00:43:08.210 --> 00:43:11.889 i'm like didn't even exist until the night before 00:43:11.889 --> 00:43:16.059 right so so to me You're getting these spur -of 00:43:16.059 --> 00:43:20.099 -the -moment thoughts, and to be able to capture 00:43:20.099 --> 00:43:25.079 those and then to ride on it, to me, is really 00:43:25.079 --> 00:43:29.139 part of that agility as well. So it is like your 00:43:29.139 --> 00:43:32.019 mind is telling you, hey, this is the plan you 00:43:32.019 --> 00:43:35.699 had, but I have a change of plan for you. This 00:43:35.699 --> 00:43:39.119 would be much more useful than what you had. 00:43:40.119 --> 00:43:42.719 decided and then the beauty is one of the things 00:43:42.719 --> 00:43:45.840 i love about pragmatic programmers is that they 00:43:45.840 --> 00:43:50.380 have that ability to be flexible right they're 00:43:50.380 --> 00:43:52.360 not sitting there and saying that's what you 00:43:52.360 --> 00:43:53.679 said you will write and that's what i'm going 00:43:53.679 --> 00:43:56.039 to force you to write but to really entertain 00:43:56.039 --> 00:43:59.139 this and say is this really valuable and if it's 00:43:59.139 --> 00:44:02.679 valuable what can we do to really you know focus 00:44:02.679 --> 00:44:06.519 on you know getting that out and and so To me, 00:44:06.519 --> 00:44:11.360 every book I have written has completely evolved 00:44:11.360 --> 00:44:14.840 from the time I decided to write the book to 00:44:14.840 --> 00:44:18.639 what comes out. And that is what I love about 00:44:18.639 --> 00:44:22.059 it. It's not about what I once thought, but it's 00:44:22.059 --> 00:44:25.900 what is emerging out of this. When my editors 00:44:25.900 --> 00:44:28.559 come to me and say, hey, you've got really good 00:44:28.559 --> 00:44:33.139 content. But you can benefit from really rethinking 00:44:33.139 --> 00:44:36.760 about what you want to focus on and to take that 00:44:36.760 --> 00:44:41.460 input, right? And one of the things I've realized 00:44:41.460 --> 00:44:45.039 is in one of the books I was writing is there 00:44:45.039 --> 00:44:47.400 was a chapter, I'm not exaggerating when I say 00:44:47.400 --> 00:44:51.420 this, this is true to the fact, there was a chapter 00:44:51.420 --> 00:44:58.769 I literally, literally deleted. four times and 00:44:58.769 --> 00:45:01.650 rewrote it. And that again, to me, is the spirit 00:45:01.650 --> 00:45:04.610 of agility, right? Because once I wrote it first 00:45:04.610 --> 00:45:08.630 time, I look at it and said, damn, not what I 00:45:08.630 --> 00:45:11.659 wanted. this to be at all. Now that I wrote it, 00:45:11.800 --> 00:45:16.039 I've got such a wealth of, you know, ideas about 00:45:16.039 --> 00:45:18.500 the examples to write and what to, you know, 00:45:18.500 --> 00:45:21.739 show. So I rewrite it. And by the time I finish 00:45:21.739 --> 00:45:24.000 rewriting the second time, I'm like, oh my gosh, 00:45:24.139 --> 00:45:26.500 this would be so much better if I change the 00:45:26.500 --> 00:45:30.039 way I organize this. So about the fourth time 00:45:30.039 --> 00:45:34.030 is when I'm like, Actually, I'm quite happy with 00:45:34.030 --> 00:45:36.690 this right now. I'm going to keep it. And this 00:45:36.690 --> 00:45:39.030 was not like taking things and changing it. It's 00:45:39.030 --> 00:45:43.730 like delete and start over. And to me, what it 00:45:43.730 --> 00:45:47.550 requires is the courage to be able to have spent 00:45:47.550 --> 00:45:51.210 maybe days writing something and then to take 00:45:51.210 --> 00:45:54.590 a deep breath and say, you know, it's good, but 00:45:54.590 --> 00:45:58.429 it can be great. So I'm going to delete it. And 00:45:58.429 --> 00:46:01.929 I'm going to start over to write it. To a certain 00:46:01.929 --> 00:46:06.010 extent, it's the courage, but it's also the perseverance, 00:46:06.190 --> 00:46:10.230 the patience. And I often say that you're not 00:46:10.230 --> 00:46:13.949 going to be able to endure that unless you are 00:46:13.949 --> 00:46:20.400 so convinced that this is... uh value that you 00:46:20.400 --> 00:46:23.420 are creating and and and the readers are going 00:46:23.420 --> 00:46:26.719 to benefit from that because you are providing 00:46:26.719 --> 00:46:30.099 a perspective that is going to make their lives 00:46:30.099 --> 00:46:33.920 a lot better and and i think that has been the 00:46:33.920 --> 00:46:37.739 fun journey uh and and to be able to invest that 00:46:37.739 --> 00:46:42.320 time over the years uh and i always say you cannot 00:46:42.320 --> 00:46:47.230 get it right on

the first right That's not going 00:46:47.230 --> 00:46:49.230 to happen, right? You're not going to get it 00:46:49.230 --> 00:46:52.389 right on the first write. It is really about 00:46:52.389 --> 00:46:56.369 rewriting. So books are not written. Books are 00:46:56.369 --> 00:47:00.349 rewritten. And that is a lesson I learned along 00:47:00.349 --> 00:47:06.329 the way. And the desire to rewrite and also not 00:47:06.329 --> 00:47:09.989 feeling frustrated, not feeling tired to say, 00:47:10.150 --> 00:47:13.449 gosh, I finished writing it. Can I just send 00:47:13.449 --> 00:47:16.440 this out? I think that's the worst. enemy in 00:47:16.440 --> 00:47:20.280 the mind. But to say, again, we have to be careful. 00:47:20.380 --> 00:47:22.039 We don't want to get into this analysis paralysis, 00:47:22.579 --> 00:47:25.760 hoard this and never send it out. That's an extreme 00:47:25.760 --> 00:47:29.519 we have to be careful about as well. But on the 00:47:29.519 --> 00:47:32.059 other hand, I think it's a balance we have to 00:47:32.059 --> 00:47:36.119 strike, not be eager to push it out because we 00:47:36.119 --> 00:47:38.940 just finished writing it. And to really say, 00:47:39.059 --> 00:47:41.800 no, this can actually be better. And I'm going 00:47:41.800 --> 00:47:45.809 to work on it again. And I think that that's 00:47:45.809 --> 00:47:48.929 kind of part of agility as well, is that using 00:47:48.929 --> 00:47:51.550 that feedback loop and then spending the time 00:47:51.550 --> 00:47:53.510 and effort to come back and improve on things, 00:47:53.630 --> 00:47:56.269 I think becomes very important. You had mentioned 00:47:56.269 --> 00:47:59.510 earlier that you basically write these books 00:47:59.510 --> 00:48:02.849 in a couple of weeks and then you work on iterating 00:48:02.849 --> 00:48:05.690 and working through it, making it better, rewriting 00:48:05.690 --> 00:48:09.030 it, as you just said. First of all, two weeks 00:48:09.030 --> 00:48:14.019 is an amazing speed. I would love to be able 00:48:14.019 --> 00:48:16.500 to write anything in two weeks. I agonize over 00:48:16.500 --> 00:48:19.960 every sentence, every word, every punctuation 00:48:19.960 --> 00:48:24.239 mark. So kudos to you on that one. Can you take 00:48:24.239 --> 00:48:27.059 me through your writing process as you're working 00:48:27.059 --> 00:48:30.300 on first developing your idea for a book and 00:48:30.300 --> 00:48:33.420 then working with your editor and how that relationship 00:48:33.420 --> 00:48:37.500 is with your editor, what you can and cannot 00:48:37.500 --> 00:48:41.300 leave at the door, so to speak? Right. And to 00:48:41.300 --> 00:48:43.380 your point, I completely agree with you. I've 00:48:43.380 --> 00:48:45.159 got some really good friends I respect a lot. 00:48:45.599 --> 00:48:49.119 And they are like that. They would write a sentence 00:48:49.119 --> 00:48:51.260 and then they would sit there and keep perfecting 00:48:51.260 --> 00:48:54.199 that sentence. And that's perfectly fine, right? 00:48:54.260 --> 00:48:58.579 That's their style of writing. Well, I respect 00:48:58.579 --> 00:49:02.280 that. That's what they follow and I respect that. 00:49:02.679 --> 00:49:08.599 To me, I call this the core dump process. uh 00:49:08.599 --> 00:49:12.019 i've got i'm you probably know this already i'm 00:49:12.019 --> 00:49:15.260 a person who can get excited too easily and and 00:49:15.260 --> 00:49:17.579 when i think of a book and i have a story to 00:49:17.579 --> 00:49:20.659 tell It's hard for me to hold that excitement. 00:49:21.619 --> 00:49:24.599 I'll give you an example of this. I was on a 00:49:24.599 --> 00:49:27.900 hike, one of the local mountains here in Colorado 00:49:27.900 --> 00:49:30.119 where I live these days. I was on a hike with 00:49:30.119 --> 00:49:34.079 my wife. And as I was hiking, it was a bit of 00:49:34.079 --> 00:49:37.179 a quiet time. And then I was just kind of thinking. 00:49:37.440 --> 00:49:39.300 And she said, so what's on your mind? I said, 00:49:39.440 --> 00:49:42.559 I'm thinking I should write a book. And then 00:49:42.559 --> 00:49:45.619 she's like, she's actually really good at this. 00:49:45.699 --> 00:49:49.130 She'll kind of, you know. seed these questions 00:49:49.130 --> 00:49:51.210 to bring things out. And she said, what do you 00:49:51.210 --> 00:49:53.690 want to write about? And I said, well, Java has 00:49:53.690 --> 00:49:56.309 been evolving really fast. What if I write a 00:49:56.309 --> 00:49:59.570 book on the evolution of Java? And then she's 00:49:59.570 --> 00:50:01.329 like, what would you have in that book? So I'm 00:50:01.329 --> 00:50:03.949 just talking about this idea of a book that's 00:50:03.949 --> 00:50:06.989 just emerging on this hike. And then I'm like, 00:50:07.110 --> 00:50:09.170 this is what I want to write. And I wonder if 00:50:09.170 --> 00:50:13.630 I can actually get this out by... the beta version 00:50:13.630 --> 00:50:16.449 out in two months because there's Java 1 coming 00:50:16.449 --> 00:50:18.090 and it would be great to have this book out in 00:50:18.090 --> 00:50:21.570 two months. And she's like, do it. And so we 00:50:21.570 --> 00:50:24.449 come back from the hike and I get into my office 00:50:24.449 --> 00:50:27.750 and I said, that's it. The next two weeks are 00:50:27.750 --> 00:50:31.260 gone. I'm going to write this book. And so I 00:50:31.260 --> 00:50:34.500 have this idea of what I want to write because 00:50:34.500 --> 00:50:37.159 it's just forming in my mind. And I just sit 00:50:37.159 --> 00:50:40.239 there and think about it and visualize what this 00:50:40.239 --> 00:50:42.480 book should be. Again, knowing that this will 00:50:42.480 --> 00:50:45.059 not be the end result, but this is a starting 00:50:45.059 --> 00:50:48.400 point. And at this point, I'm not too worried 00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:51.500 about what goes finally into the book. I want 00:50:51.500

--> 00:50:55.809 something that I can start really. playing with. 00:50:55.989 --> 00:50:59.210 I can move things around. And this is one of 00:50:59.210 --> 00:51:02.510 the beautiful things, right? Software often has 00:51:02.510 --> 00:51:05.969 observer effect, and so does books. So I can 00:51:05.969 --> 00:51:08.710 have all this thing in my mind, but the minute 00:51:08.710 --> 00:51:12.349 I put a book together, and I'll tell you one 00:51:12.349 --> 00:51:17.630 little silly process I use for the book. So as 00:51:17.630 --> 00:51:19.590 you know, pragmatic programmers have a nice way 00:51:19.590 --> 00:51:22.250 to build the book dynamically. And what I typically 00:51:22.250 --> 00:51:25.389 do is I have multiple screens. on my computer. 00:51:25.750 --> 00:51:30.190 And in one of the screens, what I do is I run 00:51:30.190 --> 00:51:33.809 a background task that looks for a change of 00:51:33.809 --> 00:51:36.329 a file in the hard drive. And the minute any 00:51:36.329 --> 00:51:38.909 of the files have been modified, it'll immediately 00:51:38.909 --> 00:51:41.730 fire up and run a script. And that script is 00:51:41.730 --> 00:51:43.829 going to go build a book. And then in another 00:51:43.829 --> 00:51:48.530 screen, I've got this PDF of the book. And you 00:51:48.530 --> 00:51:51.210 can imagine this. When I start writing the book, 00:51:51.579 --> 00:51:55.579 This has no pages, and I have this one paragraph, 00:51:55.699 --> 00:51:58.179 and then it becomes two paragraphs, three and 00:51:58.179 --> 00:52:00.440 four, and then becomes a second page and a third 00:52:00.440 --> 00:52:04.599 page. It's super motivating. You know, the mind 00:52:04.599 --> 00:52:07.199 is a state machine, right? And the mind is a 00:52:07.199 --> 00:52:10.409 state machine. We feed things into the mind. 00:52:10.769 --> 00:52:14.289 And if it's positive things we feed, it motivates 00:52:14.289 --> 00:52:16.789 to do things. If it's negative things we feed, 00:52:16.909 --> 00:52:19.389 it kind of disappoints and we kind of become 00:52:19.389 --> 00:52:22.030 tired and we sit down, we may get even depressed. 00:52:22.389 --> 00:52:26.230 So to me, seeing this page on one of the screens 00:52:26.230 --> 00:52:29.590 evolve from a paragraph to a few paragraphs to 00:52:29.590 --> 00:52:32.539 the second page to the third page. is super motivating 00:52:32.539 --> 00:52:36.019 and that's like sugar right being fed into my 00:52:36.019 --> 00:52:39.159 mind and and i'm writing this and i hit the save 00:52:39.159 --> 00:52:42.260 button and within seconds i can see this emerge 00:52:42.260 --> 00:52:45.840 in the pdf and that's my writing process so i'm 00:52:45.840 --> 00:52:49.340 not worried about the quality of what i'm writing 00:52:49.340 --> 00:52:53.280 at this point i'm more worried focused on the 00:52:53.280 --> 00:52:56.340 content i want to just do a core dump and and 00:52:56.340 --> 00:52:59.550 and i would once i finish writing this i then 00:52:59.550 --> 00:53:03.429 look at my whatever seven eight nine ten chapters 00:53:03.429 --> 00:53:06.630 that i've written over that uh you know two week 00:53:06.630 --> 00:53:09.829 period so my typical rate is about one chapter 00:53:09.829 --> 00:53:12.550 per day uh and and i would just sit there and 00:53:12.550 --> 00:53:15.909 write and let's plow through it then to come 00:53:15.909 --> 00:53:21.050 back and say uh here's the first draft it's horrible 00:53:21.050 --> 00:53:25.679 don't look at it for the for the writing style 00:53:25.679 --> 00:53:30.179 uh just look for overall content of what you 00:53:30.179 --> 00:53:33.809 want to look at and and You said the relationship 00:53:33.809 --> 00:53:36.289 with the publisher and the editor, to me, that 00:53:36.289 --> 00:53:39.510 is the key. So once you build a good relationship, 00:53:39.969 --> 00:53:43.130 then you work very differently than when you 00:53:43.130 --> 00:53:46.110 don't have that relationship. And I've been very 00:53:46.110 --> 00:53:48.730 fortunate that when I go to the publisher and 00:53:48.730 --> 00:53:50.889 I say, here's what I want to publish, they take 00:53:50.889 --> 00:53:53.289 the time. So in this particular case, it was 00:53:53.289 --> 00:53:56.829 literally a night. I sent the draft and said, 00:53:57.010 --> 00:53:59.670 here's the book, and there are only two requirements 00:53:59.670 --> 00:54:03.699 I have. i want to know who am i going to work 00:54:03.699 --> 00:54:05.820 with as an editor i'm very particular about the 00:54:05.820 --> 00:54:09.840 editor and the second thing is i want this out 00:54:09.840 --> 00:54:14.960 before java 1 in the beta so if you're able to 00:54:14.960 --> 00:54:18.380 really work so you know so quickly with it based 00:54:18.380 --> 00:54:20.820 on availability and schedule, then I'm going 00:54:20.820 --> 00:54:23.079 to sit there and rewrite the book and get it 00:54:23.079 --> 00:54:26.900 out. And then once that happens, we just start 00:54:26.900 --> 00:54:30.340 plowing through the chapters. And I then say, 00:54:30.500 --> 00:54:32.800 well, here's the first chapter. I'm going to 00:54:32.800 --> 00:54:35.920 do a complete rewrite of the chapter. So this 00:54:35.920 --> 00:54:39.369 is where I actually don't... take a written chapter 00:54:39.369 --> 00:54:42.550 and modify it. I actually start rewriting the 00:54:42.550 --> 00:54:45.750 whole chapter again. The reason I do that is 00:54:45.750 --> 00:54:48.590 I don't want to be constrained by what I had 00:54:48.590 --> 00:54:51.070 written, because now that I've written through 00:54:51.070 --> 00:54:53.389 the first draft of the book, I've got so many 00:54:53.389 --> 00:54:56.570 ideas on what needs to be in different chapters, 00:54:56.670 --> 00:54:58.949 what the chapter should be, and I don't want 00:54:58.949 --> 00:55:01.610 to be constrained about it. So I just sit there 00:55:01.610 --> 00:55:04.469 and plow through it

and write that. And at that 00:55:04.469 --> 00:55:07.530 point, I slowed down a little bit because the 00:55:07.530 --> 00:55:10.210 editor gives a lot of very useful feedback at 00:55:10.210 --> 00:55:13.170 this point. And then we start working on it and 00:55:13.170 --> 00:55:16.070 then rewriting it and bring the content in. And 00:55:16.070 --> 00:55:18.349 then we aim for the beta within about three, 00:55:18.449 --> 00:55:21.909 four months, if you will. But that's a very highly 00:55:21.909 --> 00:55:24.030 collaborative effort. And that's one of the things 00:55:24.030 --> 00:55:28.429 I really, really appreciate is the extent to 00:55:28.429 --> 00:55:31.969 which my editors have been very eager to work 00:55:31.969 --> 00:55:34.289 with. There are times they would say, you know, 00:55:34.409 --> 00:55:36.750 Our concern is to be able to keep pace with your 00:55:36.750 --> 00:55:41.309 speed because I'm absolutely fast in writing 00:55:41.309 --> 00:55:43.949 things. And they're like, we don't want to slow 00:55:43.949 --> 00:55:45.670 you down, but at the same time, we want to improve 00:55:45.670 --> 00:55:48.150 the quality. But it's absolutely a rewarding 00:55:48.150 --> 00:55:50.829 experience to be able to do that. You said that 00:55:50.829 --> 00:55:54.929 you have a particular type of editor that you're 00:55:54.929 --> 00:55:57.030 looking for, certain qualities in an editor. 00:55:57.190 --> 00:56:00.289 What are those? If you were to describe your 00:56:00.289 --> 00:56:04.139 perfect editor? Who, not necessarily who, but 00:56:04.139 --> 00:56:08.500 what would those qualities consist of? Very direct 00:56:08.500 --> 00:56:15.199 and extremely critical. I cannot emphasize that 00:56:15.199 --> 00:56:22.719 enough. To me, when my editor is critical, I 00:56:22.719 --> 00:56:27.599 don't get angry about it. And I realize they 00:56:27.599 --> 00:56:32.420 are making the book so much better. and if they 00:56:32.420 --> 00:56:37.059 are not critical then i feel very disappointed 00:56:37.059 --> 00:56:40.840 i'm like gosh this could be so much better and 00:56:40.840 --> 00:56:43.139 you're not pushing me to get that out you know 00:56:43.139 --> 00:56:46.500 on me so to me that is one of the most important 00:56:46.500 --> 00:56:50.639 things is where the editor does not take what's 00:56:50.639 --> 00:56:54.260 given and comes back and says Here's the reason 00:56:54.260 --> 00:56:57.300 why this need to be changed. And here are the 00:56:57.300 --> 00:57:00.099 things you need to really rethink about. And 00:57:00.099 --> 00:57:02.659 that is one thing I have been very happy with 00:57:02.659 --> 00:57:06.739 in, you know, all the editors I've had in Pragmatic 00:57:06.739 --> 00:57:11.920 Programmers is that level of commitment. One 00:57:11.920 --> 00:57:15.019 of the things I often say is, I truly admire 00:57:15.019 --> 00:57:19.380 their patience, because For them to come back 00:57:19.380 --> 00:57:21.960 and keep

pushing and saying, I know you wrote 00:57:21.960 --> 00:57:25.860 this, but this could be so much better. And there 00:57:25.860 --> 00:57:28.539 are times when we just spend four or five hours 00:57:28.539 --> 00:57:34.190 literally on a page. And trying to understand, 00:57:34.329 --> 00:57:36.349 here's why I'm writing this. Yes, I hear this, 00:57:36.429 --> 00:57:39.610 but this is where it falls from what could be 00:57:39.610 --> 00:57:42.889 better. And for me to really eventually understand 00:57:42.889 --> 00:57:45.869 and say, all right, let me go back and rework 00:57:45.869 --> 00:57:49.429 on this. Let me come back tomorrow or day after, 00:57:49.590 --> 00:57:51.849 and then let's work on it. And then we iterate 00:57:51.849 --> 00:57:56.579 multiple times. It is to me that... level of 00:57:56.579 --> 00:58:01.559 commitment for my editor to say, I'm going to 00:58:01.559 --> 00:58:04.639 push you hard here, because that's what you want 00:58:04.639 --> 00:58:07.840 me to do. And I want this to be a really good 00:58:07.840 --> 00:58:11.369 book for the readers, which means I am going 00:58:11.369 --> 00:58:13.730 to be the worst critique in the world. And I 00:58:13.730 --> 00:58:16.250 truly respect when I have that in the editor. 00:58:16.469 --> 00:58:19.869 To me, the weakest editor are the ones that say 00:58:19.869 --> 00:58:22.409 it looks good. I'm like, no, it looks good is 00:58:22.409 --> 00:58:25.030 the worst word in English, right? I don't want 00:58:25.030 --> 00:58:27.710 it looks good. I want you to tell me what can 00:58:27.710 --> 00:58:31.110 be better, right? And so the worst feedback you 00:58:31.110 --> 00:58:35.190 can receive. is it looks good and a real good 00:58:35.190 --> 00:58:39.989 feedback. Again, the goal is not to be disrespectful 00:58:39.989 --> 00:58:42.409 to the person. That's not what I see from my 00:58:42.409 --> 00:58:46.070 editors. They are very genuinely honest and open 00:58:46.070 --> 00:58:51.380 and brutally honest. And we talk about, so we 00:58:51.380 --> 00:58:54.659 are good friends. We talk about things, but when 00:58:54.659 --> 00:58:57.579 it comes to the subject matter, we are going 00:58:57.579 --> 00:59:01.019 to be on it. And to me, that I respect a lot 00:59:01.019 --> 00:59:03.659 because that eventually makes the book a lot 00:59:03.659 --> 00:59:07.159 better. I am an author. I'm close to the material, 00:59:07.340 --> 00:59:11.059 which means I may not see a different way of 00:59:11.059 --> 00:59:14.199 looking at it. And the nice thing about my editor 00:59:14.199 --> 00:59:17.980 is to calm me down and say, you know what? That's 00:59:17.980 --> 00:59:21.300 fine. you thought and that's good right that's 00:59:21.300 --> 00:59:24.619 good work but it can be better and here is how 00:59:24.619 --> 00:59:27.460 it can be better and to entertain that discussion 00:59:27.460 --> 00:59:30.300 and to really say okay now that means i gotta 00:59:30.300 --> 00:59:34.159 rewrite this entire part but let's do it and 00:59:34.159 --> 00:59:37.380 and i really respect that and i admire that and 00:59:37.380 --> 00:59:39.079 and that's one of the reasons i keep going back 00:59:39.079 --> 00:59:42.579 to the same people is because I know they have 00:59:42.579 --> 00:59:46.940 my best interest in the mind. They are not looking 00:59:46.940 --> 00:59:50.840 for an easy route. They are looking for the hard 00:59:50.840 --> 00:59:53.619 route that will make this a better book. And 00:59:53.619 --> 00:59:56.000 I really, really respect that. And I value that. 00:59:57.079 --> 01:00:00.300 Enjoying the show? Good. We want to keep it that 01:00:00.300 --> 01:00:03.940 way. If you have a guest suggestion, a story 01:00:03.940 --> 01:00:06.980 to share, or just want to get in touch. Send 01:00:06.980 --> 01:00:10.559 a message to interviews at roundaboutcreativechaos 01:00:10.559 --> 01:00:16.920 .com. Now, where were we? Are you ready for the 01:00:16.920 --> 01:00:21.119 second part of the show? I'm ready. I got to 01:00:21.119 --> 01:00:25.719 pull up the questions. So did you see the email 01:00:25.719 --> 01:00:29.079 I sent you earlier? I did, yes. Did you read 01:00:29.079 --> 01:00:32.739 the questions? No, I never do. I want it to be 01:00:32.739 --> 01:00:36.420 spontaneous. All right. Well, I cannot wait to 01:00:36.420 --> 01:00:40.199 hear your answer to these questions. So in the 01:00:40.199 --> 01:00:42.760 second part of the show, we have a series of 01:00:42.760 --> 01:00:46.139 13 questions sort of based on Marcel Proust's 01:00:46.139 --> 01:00:49.139 questionnaire. And these questions are definitely 01:00:49.139 --> 01:00:55.500 2026 geared. Some of them are certainly not questions 01:00:55.500 --> 01:00:59.210 Marcel Proust would have asked. I'm not him. 01:00:59.250 --> 01:01:02.750 And I asked some weird questions. So feel free 01:01:02.750 --> 01:01:07.909 to give simple answers or elaborate on your answers. 01:01:08.269 --> 01:01:10.690 However you want to answer them. It's entirely 01:01:10.690 --> 01:01:13.610 up to you. If you want to take your time to think 01:01:13.610 --> 01:01:16.570 about it, that is the beauty of post -production. 01:01:16.750 --> 01:01:20.110 We could take all the ums and the uhs and the 01:01:20.110 --> 01:01:23.280 long pauses right on out. And it'll sound like 01:01:23.280 --> 01:01:26.219 you had these answers at the top of your head, 01:01:26.320 --> 01:01:29.800 at the tip of your tongue. So if you are seated 01:01:29.800 --> 01:01:33.079 comfortably, as my co -host who wasn't able to 01:01:33.079 --> 01:01:37.000 make it here tonight likes to say, we will begin 01:01:37.000 --> 01:01:40.699 with the first question. What is your favorite 01:01:40.699 --> 01:01:47.039 word? Discipline. Software development is one 01:01:47.039 --> 01:01:51.260 part technology and multiple parts discipline. 01:01:52.659 --> 01:01:58.019 If we have the discipline to follow

things that 01:01:58.019 --> 01:02:00.500 will help us to create sustainable products, 01:02:00.880 --> 01:02:03.659 we will be a lot more successful than we are. 01:02:04.460 --> 01:02:10.199 I use the phrase agile by convenience. And I 01:02:10.199 --> 01:02:13.500 use the phrase agile convenience because a lot 01:02:13.500 --> 01:02:17.119 of companies are focused on let's pick and choose 01:02:17.119 --> 01:02:20.579 the easy parts in this agile development process. 01:02:21.420 --> 01:02:23.880 rather than have the discipline to ask the question. 01:02:25.300 --> 01:02:29.320 Discipline comes in many different forms. To 01:02:29.320 --> 01:02:33.519 be able to show up to work on time, to really 01:02:33.519 --> 01:02:37.659 focus on putting that extra effort, to create 01:02:37.659 --> 01:02:41.500 what's of quality, to be able to... Think about 01:02:41.500 --> 01:02:44.900 the customers and make sure that we are able 01:02:44.900 --> 01:02:47.739 to deliver value to them, even when it requires 01:02:47.739 --> 01:02:50.800 a lot more effort from us. In almost every aspect 01:02:50.800 --> 01:02:55.139 of life, it's about having the discipline. But 01:02:55.139 --> 01:02:58.719 not just in programming. When you are starting 01:02:58.719 --> 01:03:04.320 to earn money, to have the discipline to invest. 01:03:05.309 --> 01:03:08.969 has a big impact on saving for retirement in 01:03:08.969 --> 01:03:11.690 the long run you know when somebody is 70 years 01:03:11.690 --> 01:03:15.849 old or 75 years old they shouldn't have to work 01:03:15.849 --> 01:03:19.250 they can work if they want to work look at warren 01:03:19.250 --> 01:03:22.949 buffett he was 98 when he retired and he's one 01:03:22.949 --> 01:03:24.909 of the richest person in the world clearly he 01:03:24.909 --> 01:03:27.269 didn't have to work but he did because he wanted 01:03:27.269 --> 01:03:30.880 to work but to me How do you get to the point 01:03:30.880 --> 01:03:34.659 where you can enjoy working because you want 01:03:34.659 --> 01:03:37.960 to and not because you have to? That again goes 01:03:37.960 --> 01:03:40.460 back to discipline. When you make that money 01:03:40.460 --> 01:03:44.179 as a 20 -something or a 30 -something, it's tempting 01:03:44.179 --> 01:03:46.760 to go spend that money on all these interesting 01:03:46.760 --> 01:03:50.000 things. but to have the discipline to go invest 01:03:50.000 --> 01:03:54.300 into it. Same thing, to show up to the gym and 01:03:54.300 --> 01:03:57.920 to be able to work out. Why? Well, gosh, it's 01:03:57.920 --> 01:04:00.519 a lot of hard work to work out, but I'm going 01:04:00.519 --> 01:04:03.280 to have the discipline to show up because I want 01:04:03.280 --> 01:04:05.480 to think of the long term. I want to think of 01:04:05.480 --> 01:04:09.519 my health, not right now in my 20s and 30s, but 01:04:09.519 --> 01:04:13.360 when I'm 60s and 70s and 80s. So almost everything 01:04:13.360 --> 01:04:18.300 in life comes back to that word. And that's why 01:04:18.300 --> 01:04:21.019 that's one of my most favorite words. What is 01:04:21.019 --> 01:04:23.360 your least favorite word? Does it have to be 01:04:23.360 --> 01:04:26.480 a word or can be a phrase? You know what? I'm 01:04:26.480 --> 01:04:32.900 going to let you go with a whole phrase. Hypothetical 01:04:32.900 --> 01:04:38.639 deadlines. Oh, okay. This to me is frustrating. 01:04:39.659 --> 01:04:46.070 As an industry, we drive ourselves. to the ground 01:04:46.070 --> 01:04:51.469 by setting unreasonable deadlines and driving 01:04:51.469 --> 01:04:56.730 everyone around us towards the deadline and somehow 01:04:56.730 --> 01:05:01.010 nothing is important than that deadline. So when 01:05:01.010 --> 01:05:04.369 I ask people, okay, you hit the deadline, does 01:05:04.369 --> 01:05:08.130 your product actually work? If we are going to 01:05:08.130 --> 01:05:13.909 spend months after that fixing errors and fixing 01:05:14.590 --> 01:05:18.130 damages that it creates in production, what was 01:05:18.130 --> 01:05:21.050 the point in rushing to that particular deadline? 01:05:21.570 --> 01:05:24.369 And I think this is one of the things, maybe 01:05:24.369 --> 01:05:27.250 if you want a single word, I would say velocity 01:05:27.250 --> 01:05:30.670 is a really terrible word, because that's really 01:05:30.670 --> 01:05:34.130 what it comes down to these unreasonable expectations 01:05:34.130 --> 01:05:38.250 we have on the timeline. I think as an industry, 01:05:38.369 --> 01:05:43.559 I think we need to mature and have that discipline 01:05:43.559 --> 01:05:48.380 to focus on what's valuable and to be able to 01:05:48.380 --> 01:05:53.019 create sustainable practices rather than lowering 01:05:53.019 --> 01:05:57.940 quality everywhere we go and in the process we 01:05:57.940 --> 01:06:02.099 are not just eroding our customers trust we are 01:06:02.099 --> 01:06:05.460 eroding the company's ability to retain good 01:06:05.460 --> 01:06:08.699 reputation we are jeopardizing our employees 01:06:08.699 --> 01:06:13.010 health in the process the net Some is a huge 01:06:13.010 --> 01:06:17.289 negative because we tend to focus on that unreasonable 01:06:17.289 --> 01:06:21.389 timeline. Which do you like the most? Books, 01:06:21.630 --> 01:06:27.730 movies, music, or games? Games. And part of the 01:06:27.730 --> 01:06:34.349 reason I like games is you're not passive when 01:06:34.349 --> 01:06:36.849 you're part of a game. You're actively involved 01:06:36.849 --> 01:06:39.769 in it, number one. You know, movie you can sit 01:06:39.769 --> 01:06:42.190 and watch, but... you're not participating in 01:06:42.190 --> 01:06:46.849 it second a game a good game can really bring 01:06:46.849 --> 01:06:51.449 not only interesting dynamics it can be really 01:06:51.449 --> 01:06:55.050 interesting in building good relationships good 01:06:55.050 --> 01:06:58.130 friendship as well some of the most

memorable 01:06:58.130 --> 01:07:03.059 moments i've had are the times when, with my 01:07:03.059 --> 01:07:05.920 immediate family and extended family and friends, 01:07:06.239 --> 01:07:08.820 when we would sit down and play games, either 01:07:08.820 --> 01:07:11.900 at the end of a long day at a conference or a 01:07:11.900 --> 01:07:16.139 long weekend at home. That's something I always 01:07:16.139 --> 01:07:19.139 would prefer compared to everything else. Who 01:07:19.139 --> 01:07:22.659 is your favorite fictional character? I really 01:07:22.659 --> 01:07:27.980 like Ben -Hur. Really? Yeah. And this is something 01:07:27.980 --> 01:07:32.550 that carries... uh memories i've i've watched 01:07:32.550 --> 01:07:36.030 ben -hur countless number of times and part of 01:07:36.030 --> 01:07:41.010 the reason i like it is uh for somebody to go 01:07:41.010 --> 01:07:44.269 through the hardship a true hero's journey if 01:07:44.269 --> 01:07:48.170 you will and and to be able to take on that hardship 01:07:48.170 --> 01:07:53.369 and to be able to come back and do the right 01:07:53.369 --> 01:07:57.320 things i would say ben -hur even though I have 01:07:57.320 --> 01:08:00.239 quite a number of characters, but Ben -Hur always 01:08:00.239 --> 01:08:02.940 stays in my mind. Where's the most interesting 01:08:02.940 --> 01:08:11.739 place you've ever been? Home. I like it. I travel 01:08:11.739 --> 01:08:14.260 a lot. I travel almost every week around the 01:08:14.260 --> 01:08:18.199 world. And I've been to some phenomenal places 01:08:18.199 --> 01:08:22.109 around the world. uh but that makes it even more 01:08:22.109 --> 01:08:25.409 special when i do get back home and i i don't 01:08:25.409 --> 01:08:27.430 spend too much time at home because of my my 01:08:27.430 --> 01:08:30.350 travel but home is definitely a very special 01:08:30.350 --> 01:08:35.149 place uh to to come back and just sit down in 01:08:35.149 --> 01:08:39.449 your own space uh irrespective of how much you 01:08:39.449 --> 01:08:42.109 know luxury you've been through or hardship you've 01:08:42.109 --> 01:08:45.029 been through on the travel nothing like home 01:08:45.029 --> 01:08:48.880 so i would say home is my favorite place What? 01:08:49.279 --> 01:08:53.340 Oh, that's the wrong question. Let me do that 01:08:53.340 --> 01:08:56.659 again. Who is the most interesting person you've 01:08:56.659 --> 01:08:59.779 ever met? Most interesting person I have ever 01:08:59.779 --> 01:09:06.659 met. That's a hard one. See, so these questions 01:09:06.659 --> 01:09:08.979 are designed to get you to think deeper into 01:09:08.979 --> 01:09:12.119 who you are, where you've been, what you've been 01:09:12.119 --> 01:09:17.979 up to. It's not just about your public. It's 01:09:17.979 --> 01:09:22.239 not just about your creative work or your work 01:09:22.239 --> 01:09:25.359 work or anything like that. It really is meant 01:09:25.359 --> 01:09:28.140 to, all these questions are,

even the favorite 01:09:28.140 --> 01:09:31.720 fictional characters, all of them are meant to 01:09:31.720 --> 01:09:35.460 dig deeper into who you are as a person. And 01:09:35.460 --> 01:09:39.840 hopefully, maybe have you discovered something 01:09:39.840 --> 01:09:43.239 about yourself that you didn't really know? I 01:09:43.239 --> 01:09:47.500 have met some really amazing people. That's the 01:09:47.500 --> 01:09:51.279 problem. It's easy to give an easy answer, but 01:09:51.279 --> 01:09:56.060 I want to get a little deeper into it. I would 01:09:56.060 --> 01:10:01.399 say a person that really has shown me empathy 01:10:01.399 --> 01:10:07.619 and has shown how you could actually do things 01:10:07.619 --> 01:10:14.539 very differently than what may be normally expected. 01:10:15.420 --> 01:10:21.000 So I would say this is a professor I had at the 01:10:21.000 --> 01:10:28.159 undergrad level. And this professor did not have 01:10:28.159 --> 01:10:33.100 to do the things he did. But he was very keen 01:10:33.100 --> 01:10:37.180 on fundamental research and to be able to get 01:10:37.180 --> 01:10:42.640 students excited about those research. So one 01:10:42.640 --> 01:10:48.619 of the things he would do. is provide absolute 01:10:48.619 --> 01:10:56.260 time for us to go work with him on the research. 01:10:57.800 --> 01:11:02.159 There was no hierarchy. We called him by his 01:11:02.159 --> 01:11:05.340 first name, which was extremely unusual back 01:11:05.340 --> 01:11:07.680 in time. And even today, I would say in India, 01:11:07.840 --> 01:11:11.659 you don't call people by their first name. But 01:11:11.659 --> 01:11:13.939 he insisted we called him on his first name. 01:11:14.829 --> 01:11:18.970 I would literally go to his house, knock on the 01:11:18.970 --> 01:11:21.850 door, and I would sit there and do research on 01:11:21.850 --> 01:11:26.770 Saturdays and Sundays. And his wife, you know, 01:11:26.770 --> 01:11:32.090 he had one daughter at that time. You know, he's 01:11:32.090 --> 01:11:34.909 got two daughters now. But she literally would 01:11:34.909 --> 01:11:37.409 look at me and say, You've been here for hours. 01:11:37.489 --> 01:11:40.250 Have you had your food? I'm like, oh, no, I'll 01:11:40.250 --> 01:11:41.970 have it later. She's like, no, you're like my 01:11:41.970 --> 01:11:46.329 son. Sit down here. And she would feed me while 01:11:46.329 --> 01:11:48.890 the rest of the family is being served meal. 01:11:49.470 --> 01:11:52.890 So it almost felt like I was a child in the house. 01:11:53.569 --> 01:11:57.069 And literally, he would come to my house late 01:11:57.069 --> 01:11:59.850 in the evening and say, I just thought of this 01:11:59.850 --> 01:12:02.909 idea. And I was reading through the work you 01:12:02.909 --> 01:12:05.210 have done. But I want to talk to you about it. 01:12:05.479 --> 01:12:11.600 So to me, to see his true passion for research 01:12:11.600 --> 01:12:20.819 and his genuine desire to help his students to 01:12:20.819 --> 01:12:29.340 have that research bug in them, and that was 01:12:29.340 --> 01:12:33.770 a huge influence for me, is to... know that somebody 01:12:33.770 --> 01:12:38.630 could actually be so selfless in terms of how 01:12:38.630 --> 01:12:41.170 genuinely somebody is interested in research 01:12:41.170 --> 01:12:44.909 and helping others be as excited about research 01:12:44.909 --> 01:12:47.609 as well. I don't think anyone can probably come 01:12:47.609 --> 01:12:50.569 close to that, in my opinion. What is something 01:12:50.569 --> 01:12:55.569 you own that cannot be replaced? A material thing 01:12:55.569 --> 01:13:01.920 or an intangible thing? It's up to you. What 01:13:01.920 --> 01:13:06.340 is it that I have cannot be replaced? I would 01:13:06.340 --> 01:13:12.220 say the respect I have for certain people. Me, 01:13:12.220 --> 01:13:16.680 right? Absolutely. Including you, absolutely. 01:13:17.180 --> 01:13:20.979 And I think this is one of the things that I've 01:13:20.979 --> 01:13:26.100 been very fortunate about is to really come across 01:13:26.100 --> 01:13:31.380 people in various aspects of my journey. to show 01:13:31.380 --> 01:13:34.380 how each one of them can be unique in their own 01:13:34.380 --> 01:13:38.380 way, but at the same time, show that something 01:13:38.380 --> 01:13:41.140 can be done differently and something can be 01:13:41.140 --> 01:13:44.039 done for the better. And the genuine respect 01:13:44.039 --> 01:13:47.039 you develop for them is something I think I'll 01:13:47.039 --> 01:13:51.760 carry for forever. Some of them, of course, you 01:13:51.760 --> 01:13:54.699 move on, you're not in touch with them, but you 01:13:54.699 --> 01:13:57.920 always think about and the respect that you have 01:13:57.920 --> 01:14:00.869 for them. So I would say... The one that you 01:14:00.869 --> 01:14:03.270 can't take away from me is the respect I have 01:14:03.270 --> 01:14:05.949 for some people. What have you changed your mind 01:14:05.949 --> 01:14:14.909 about in the last year? Oh, a lot. I have changed 01:14:14.909 --> 01:14:20.630 my mind quite a bit about AI as one thing, for 01:14:20.630 --> 01:14:25.090 example. I don't think I'm still... in either 01:14:25.090 --> 01:14:27.930 of the camps of the optimistic camp or the pessimistic 01:14:27.930 --> 01:14:34.729 camp. But I do believe that AI is a fantastic 01:14:34.729 --> 01:14:38.789 tool. But I will also mention something my boss 01:14:38.789 --> 01:14:44.989 mentioned to me about 40 years ago. And my boss 01:14:44.989 --> 01:14:49.430 said, a fool with a tool is a dangerous fool. 01:14:50.460 --> 01:14:54.800 And AI is that tool in the hands of fools as 01:14:54.800 --> 01:15:00.060 well. So AI is an amplifier. I think in the hands 01:15:00.060 --> 01:15:03.140 of the right person, it's going to amplify their 01:15:03.140 --> 01:15:06.039 capability. In the hands of the wrong person, 01:15:06.279 -->

01:15:09.000 it's also going to amplify their foolishness. 01:15:09.220 --> 01:15:14.380 I'm for this belief that with the AI, smart becomes 01:15:14.380 --> 01:15:19.810 smarter and dumb becomes dumber. I did start 01:15:19.810 --> 01:15:25.609 with a big doubt about AI. And I'm not convinced 01:15:25.609 --> 01:15:28.789 that it's a tool you would just use blindly. 01:15:29.369 --> 01:15:33.130 But it's a tool in the hands of the right person 01:15:33.130 --> 01:15:37.050 is a phenomenally powerful tool. And I think 01:15:37.050 --> 01:15:39.210 that's something that I've been willing to change 01:15:39.210 --> 01:15:42.970 my mind on. Okay. That's a good one for you, 01:15:43.010 --> 01:15:46.289 I think. I kind of feel like I know the answer 01:15:46.289 --> 01:15:48.609 to this, but I'm going to ask anyway. Maybe you'll 01:15:48.609 --> 01:15:52.130 surprise me. What is the worst job you've ever 01:15:52.130 --> 01:15:58.609 had? The job that I really did not like was the 01:15:58.609 --> 01:16:02.770 one that made rich corporations richer without 01:16:02.770 --> 01:16:10.409 me providing any value to improve a general human 01:16:10.409 --> 01:16:18.600 life. So systems admin. This was one of my early 01:16:18.600 --> 01:16:24.859 jobs that I had after graduation. And you can 01:16:24.859 --> 01:16:27.880 imagine when you're making all this money coming 01:16:27.880 --> 01:16:32.279 out of poverty from graduate school, to go to 01:16:32.279 --> 01:16:36.460 work every day and to come back home and feel 01:16:36.460 --> 01:16:41.810 really sad. And I had to take the time, it took 01:16:41.810 --> 01:16:44.189 me about two years, a little bit more than two 01:16:44.189 --> 01:16:48.510 years, to literally introspect and to genuinely 01:16:48.510 --> 01:16:51.670 ask this question every day, why am I unhappy? 01:16:52.449 --> 01:16:57.149 And what I realized was, I started really looking 01:16:57.149 --> 01:17:00.909 at my happiness index during the day. And I found 01:17:00.909 --> 01:17:04.569 something very strange. The time I was making 01:17:04.569 --> 01:17:08.149 the most money was the time I was the least happy. 01:17:08.970 --> 01:17:12.470 And the time I was making the least money was 01:17:12.470 --> 01:17:15.529 the time I was the most happy. And this was very 01:17:15.529 --> 01:17:18.390 ironic, right? To be able to see this and say, 01:17:18.489 --> 01:17:22.369 oh my gosh, I'm really happy right now, but I'm 01:17:22.369 --> 01:17:25.189 not making much money, but I'm enjoying this 01:17:25.189 --> 01:17:29.050 interaction with others. And I am sitting there 01:17:29.050 --> 01:17:31.810 and learning with them and sharing what I know 01:17:31.810 --> 01:17:35.779 versus... During the day, I'm sitting and writing 01:17:35.779 --> 01:17:37.680 code. And don't get me wrong, this is great. 01:17:37.779 --> 01:17:41.060 I'm doing design and analysis and doing high 01:17:41.060 --> 01:17:45.859 -tech stuff. But it felt me emotionally drained 01:17:45.859 --> 01:17:50.539 because all that was done so a big corporation 01:17:50.539 --> 01:17:53.880 can show that they're making more money in the 01:17:53.880 --> 01:17:57.520 next quarter. And so to me, that was the worst 01:17:57.520 --> 01:18:01.119 job. What is your greatest achievement? I would 01:18:01.119 --> 01:18:06.840 say my greatest achievement. is to motivate a 01:18:06.840 --> 01:18:12.439 generation of developers literally around the 01:18:12.439 --> 01:18:16.960 world. And it's a very humbling experience. When 01:18:16.960 --> 01:18:21.359 I go to Europe, when I go to Asia, it is to have 01:18:21.359 --> 01:18:25.159 somebody approach me and say, I need to thank 01:18:25.159 --> 01:18:29.819 you. and you had this video or you had this course, 01:18:30.060 --> 01:18:33.119 and it fundamentally changed how I think about 01:18:33.119 --> 01:18:38.520 it. And to me, to have that privilege, to have 01:18:38.520 --> 01:18:42.279 that opportunity, not setting out to say, I'm 01:18:42.279 --> 01:18:46.060 going to do this, but to focus on what I'm doing 01:18:46.060 --> 01:18:51.000 and have a side effect where people have benefited 01:18:51.000 --> 01:18:55.460 from it. is truly an achievement that I am very 01:18:55.460 --> 01:18:57.939 humbled for and to have had that opportunity. 01:18:58.420 --> 01:19:01.920 What is your biggest regret? The biggest regret 01:19:01.920 --> 01:19:07.739 I would say is taking life too seriously. And 01:19:07.739 --> 01:19:13.479 this kind of goes back to a lot of emotional 01:19:13.479 --> 01:19:17.159 baggage we all carry with us. Life is not always 01:19:17.159 --> 01:19:24.970 kind to us. A lot of what we do is a consequence 01:19:24.970 --> 01:19:27.850 of situations we have been through in our early 01:19:27.850 --> 01:19:32.710 part of lives. And some of them led me to take 01:19:32.710 --> 01:19:37.829 things way too seriously. And looking back, I 01:19:37.829 --> 01:19:42.270 would say maybe I worked too hard than I really 01:19:42.270 --> 01:19:46.430 need to, but it worked out all right. What do 01:19:46.430 --> 01:19:51.470 you fear the most? Complacency. I get so fearful 01:19:51.470 --> 01:19:57.210 when somebody says this is good enough. There 01:19:57.210 --> 01:19:59.550 is a little voice in me that constantly says 01:19:59.550 --> 01:20:03.149 there's got to be a better way. And I want to 01:20:03.149 --> 01:20:05.869 come back time and again and see how I can improve 01:20:05.869 --> 01:20:13.310 things. And I get really fearful that people 01:20:13.310 --> 01:20:16.680 will become complacent and walk away. when there 01:20:16.680 --> 01:20:19.859 could be better quality or better results, just 01:20:19.859 --> 01:20:22.079 to walk that extra mile so we can give something 01:20:22.079 --> 01:20:27.000 better. Complacency is hard. Yeah, I agree with 01:20:27.000 --> 01:20:30.439 that. Okay, this is the last question and the 01:20:30.439 --> 01:20:34.140 most

important question. And I'm so curious to 01:20:34.140 --> 01:20:37.020 hear how you're going to answer it. In fact, 01:20:37.100 --> 01:20:40.300 your answer depends on whether or not I actually 01:20:40.300 --> 01:20:43.539 publish the episode. But no pressure, no pressure 01:20:43.539 --> 01:20:48.890 whatsoever. What would you do in a zombie apocalypse? 01:20:49.329 --> 01:20:59.210 And who would you want by your side? I want by 01:20:59.210 --> 01:21:02.829 my side, somebody who actually knows how to deal 01:21:02.829 --> 01:21:07.689 with zombie because I have no clue. Finding competent 01:21:07.689 --> 01:21:11.800 people is a good idea to have by your side. So 01:21:11.800 --> 01:21:13.560 you'll be bait is what you're saying, unless 01:21:13.560 --> 01:21:17.460 you find someone who can save you. Absolutely. 01:21:17.979 --> 01:21:22.319 Nice. Nice. Well, you survived the chaotic questions. 01:21:22.800 --> 01:21:25.939 Yay for you. I'm going to publish this episode 01:21:25.939 --> 01:21:28.180 because that was a pretty good answer. I think 01:21:28.180 --> 01:21:31.880 question number 13, you got a good answer. But 01:21:31.880 --> 01:21:35.699 Kat, if our listeners wanted to know what you 01:21:35.699 --> 01:21:38.460 were working on next or currently and how to 01:21:38.460 --> 01:21:40.819 get in touch with you. Where should they go? 01:21:40.920 --> 01:21:43.699 What are you working on? What can we expect from 01:21:43.699 --> 01:21:45.600 you next? Like another 12 books, I'm thinking 01:21:45.600 --> 01:21:52.279 at least? Well, right now I am focused on more 01:21:52.279 --> 01:21:55.819 client work. That's where I'm focused on. Helping 01:21:55.819 --> 01:22:00.279 quite a number of my clients grapple with effectively 01:22:00.279 --> 01:22:05.039 using AI and to bring quality, sustainable engineering 01:22:05.039 --> 01:22:07.680 practices while we are using AI. That's what 01:22:07.680 --> 01:22:10.399 I've been focusing on. I'm also be focusing on 01:22:10.399 --> 01:22:12.659 running some conferences. We're running a conference, 01:22:12.760 --> 01:22:17.119 Dev2Next, and also one in spring called Arc. 01:22:17.199 --> 01:22:19.560 of AI. So I've been busy running these conferences 01:22:19.560 --> 01:22:23.199 in addition to working with my clients. Google 01:22:23.199 --> 01:22:29.140 my name and you should be able to find my website, 01:22:29.359 --> 01:22:32.779 agiledeveloper .com. There's contact pages in 01:22:32.779 --> 01:22:35.560 there. I have this bad habit of replying to every 01:22:35.560 --> 01:22:38.319 email I receive. So if anybody drops an email, 01:22:38.539 --> 01:22:41.500 I apologize. They will receive reply from me. 01:22:42.060 --> 01:22:44.380 I know you replied to my email about being on 01:22:44.380 --> 01:22:46.560 the show. And sure enough, here you are. What 01:22:46.560 --> 01:22:50.500 do you know? Venkat, is there anything that we 01:22:50.500 --> 01:22:53.220 didn't get to talk about tonight that you might 01:22:53.220 --> 01:22:55.939 want to talk about before we wrap up? Or what 01:22:55.939 --> 01:22:58.359 do you think? I think this is good. So I really 01:22:58.359 --> 01:23:00.979 appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. And 01:23:00.979 --> 01:23:04.119 I couldn't be more thankful. So thank you for 01:23:04.119 --> 01:23:08.720 having me on this show. And best wishes for things 01:23:08.720 --> 01:23:11.600 ahead. Thank you. Thank you so much for agreeing 01:23:11.600 --> 01:23:15.939 to be here. I too had a great time and I cannot 01:23:15.939 --> 01:23:18.939 wait to see where this whole AI thing takes us. 01:23:18.960 --> 01:23:22.779 And I'm glad that you're there helping to lead 01:23:22.779 --> 01:23:25.439 the charge in some way, shape and form. So I 01:23:25.439 --> 01:23:27.560 appreciate that. And for our listeners, thank 01:23:27.560 --> 01:23:30.739 you so much for joining us again tonight. And 01:23:30.739 --> 01:23:39.619 I guess we'll see you next time. If any zombies 01:23:39.619 --> 01:23:42.340 happen to get into your house, go for the brains. 01:23:42.899 --> 01:23:47.399 We insist, do not leave your house. Thank you 01:23:47.399 --> 01:24:18.069 very much for your cooperation. Well, folks, 01:24:18.189 --> 01:24:20.770 that wraps up another episode of Roundabout Creative 01:24:20.770 --> 01:24:24.369 Chaos. You can find us on the web at roundaboutcreativechaos 01:24:24.369 --> 01:24:28.729 .com. We're also on Blue Sky, TikTok, Instagram, 01:24:29.170 --> 01:24:32.630 YouTube, LinkedIn, and X at Roundabout Chaos. 01:24:33.270 --> 01:24:35.890 If you enjoyed this episode, please consider 01:24:35.890 --> 01:24:38.649 leaving a review. Maybe even send a friend our 01:24:38.649 --> 01:24:41.869 way. It's the best thing you can do for us and 01:24:41.869 --> 01:24:45.890 for them. Well, short of sending cookies. So 01:24:45.890 --> 01:24:49.350 until next time, stay sharp, keep your brains 01:24:49.350 --> 01:24:52.590 intact, and whatever you do, don't forget rule 01:24:52.590 --> 01:24:54.310 number one, cardio.