Accepting GenAI

My Blacklist of Technologies
When I started out as a Java developer, I wanted to know everything about Java. I wanted to know all libraries and all frameworks. What a silly idea. Clearly Java or software development in general was and still is way too vast to know everything. Beginning 2003, I started ignoring certain technologies. I maintained a black list of topics and libraries, e.g. I decided to ignore all Java web frameworks. Later I ignored EJBs and then I added the whole Spring ecosystem to this list. While I knew these things existed and I had a working knowledge for my day job, I would refuse to study them in my personal free time. There was nothing wrong with these technologies. I did not find them interesting. Using that approach, I successfully skipped all the rage about SOA and other hypes, and I am not looking back. ;-) Explicitly ignoring topics helped me to focus on the things which I liked and considered important.

Scary or Awesome or What
And then ChatGPT came out. (The Wikipedia link is probably unnecessary.) There was an extreme buzz around it, and because of that I wanted to ignore it. A few months later I worked with a group of interns at one of my clients. These young people were enthusiastic about AI - most of them paid for pro versions from their own money - and they encouraged me to look into it. And so I did. And I got frightened. I enjoyed every post that diminished LLMs as stochastic parrots. Let's face it, isn't it weird when a machine can have a conversation with you? I am full of awe, also in a scared way - I am unsure what the right word is to describe my feeling.

Since last year, all of my clients ask for workshops to improve their coding with the use of AI. Code assistants and agents - augmented coding - get better and better. And sometimes the results are surprising. In the end, it is the same if AI works for coding or not - the industry has already decided on its adoption. For some time, I tried to deny it. But after Dave Farley's study about developers using AI, there was more denying it. I had to accept that AI will take over coding. (Dave Farley's video is 12 minutes, without hype, and in the end he gives a clear direction to follow. You should watch it.)

Fear of Obsolescence
Software development is changing quickly, and many of our skills become worthless (says Kent Beck). I read somewhere that "every technological revolution has displaced skills that people spent years mastering" and that "the people that are really skilled, have a lot of room to fall." (says Bryan Seegmiller). Yes, I feel like that. Coding is more than my work (and my fun), it is my identity. I have been playing with code since more than 40 years now. During this time, I have even established habits to use coding for relaxation, and I like exploring topics around code. I do not mean development, I particularly mean coding. I am the Code Cop and I am obsessed with manipulating the textual structure, improving its readability, exploring symmetries, tweaking it, moving it around like clay, and so on. And now all this is going away and it is scaring the hell out of me.

How am I dealing with all of this?
A senior developer from one of my clients, struggling with AI adoption himself, asked me how I am dealing with all of this? I am not, or at least not well. I thought about moving into areas where AI is useless and uncommon (yet?). For example, a study showed that AI is less effective on COBOL and other legacy code. Lovely! I bought a bunch of COBOL courses, and planned to take them. I had several other ideas, too, none of them really helped me till now. The core goal of this post was to list a few resources which really helped me:

• Maybe the first step is accepting the use of GenAI.
  
  
• I highly recommend this podcast with Grady Booch about the third golden age of software engineering. Grady Booch's approach is historical and more systemic. He is calm, with good perspective. It is 80 minutes long, audio-only is enough. This is the first piece that helped me to a more positive attitude.
  
  
• Kent Beck, who probably lost more to the rise of augmented coding than anybody, is lovely. In his conversation with Trisha Gee about Skills Developers Need to Have in an AI Future, they talk about developers losing confidence that they will be able to learn the next set of necessary skills. How true.
  
  
• Embrace Change is the second principle of the Agile Manifesto. While I try to stay clear of processes and am okay whether we use waterfall or Scrum or whatever, I do care about the code, and I favour Embracing Change there, designing in a way that would allow changes. Keeping software soft. Recently I was reminded of that fact by a fellow technical coach. So let's embrace change, even if it is frightening right now.
  
  
• Last month Kent Beck started a new podcast Still Burning where he has honest conversation about what it actually feels like to work in this moment - the fear, the uncertainty, the quiet disorientation of tools changing faster than understanding can follow.. The acknowledgement of these feelings, the disorientation, this is balm for my soul. I have always admired Kent Beck and the podcast setup is so grounded (actual fire, real smoke, Kent is coughing) and humble, it is already a classic.

What Next
These discussions helped me, and I hope they will help you, too. Am I done? I stay critical of using AI, its effects on me, my skills and the world in general. At the same time I try to board the AI train and follow along with the current. There are plenty opportunities to participate in AI experiments right now. Hopefully that will be enough to stay on the topic. My fear of missing out is real, I spend too much time with Generative AI. My wife already urges me to take a break from all this. It is exhausting. Everywhere it is just "AI", "AI", "AI".

I find your lack of tests disturbing

Classics never get old. Like with Shut up and Write a Test, I am reposting an old meme about lack of tests, see its preview on the right. Lack of tests is a direct result of not following the prior advice when to write tests. ;-) In many coaching discussions I need to fall back to the fundamental basics and I cannot allow such a gem to vanish. Usually I find the lack of tests in my client's code base disturbing.

Origin
The image was posted on rubystammtisch.at, a site which ceased to exist long time ago. I downloaded it at the 25th of March 2009 for a presentation held at the local user group. The meme is a variation of Darth Vader's "I find your lack of faith disturbing", used as a phrasal template where "faith" is swapped with other words. Now that I have researched the origin of the image, I could re-create it using Meme generators. I will not, a classic is a classic. (And again, during writing a blog post, the process of writing is valuable and I learn on the way by organising and structuring the material. That is why I recommend writing as a learning and teaching activity at the same time.) Unfortunately the original image is only 400 pixel width, printed versions will be fuzzy. It might use it on my upcoming Code Cop Veto Cards, similar to my Achievement Appreciation Cards, as cards require smaller images with less detail.

I find a lack of tests disturbing.

I want you to exceed me

During my time at IBM I started coaching other teams. It was fun and I liked it. Later I went into full time training and coaching, and my motto was "Developing Quality Software Developers". I knew it was the thing I wanted to do, but I did not know why.

Gamification
I use Gamification as a strategy to improve user engagement. To increase participation in my workshops and to express my feelings about that, I created achievement cards, the Code Cop Achievement Cards. Achievements or trophies are concepts from video games, and describe meta-goals defined outside the game's parameters. Meeting the fulfilment conditions, and receiving recognition of fulfilment by the game, is referred to as unlocking the achievement. There are several cards for first time participants in my deck, for example Shortcut Fu when someone uses a rare keyboard short-cut, Regexer for comprehending a crazy regular expression or Finisher for finishing the coding exercise started during the workshop at home - which I always offer but rarely happens. I award these cards to a participant, if I feel that the person has worked hard or struggled to make it.

Appreciation
I wanted my cards to convey my honest appreciation and used NVC (Non-violent Communication) appreciation statements. For a NVC-style appreciation we share the specific actions that contributed to our well-being, the needs that have been fulfilled, and the feelings engendered by the fulfilment of those needs. The focus is to create a clear understanding of how our life was enriched.. This made me think more about my feelings and which of my needs had been satisfied at the moments when I wanted to appreciate some action. I had thought about needs before in more general, less personal way. My friend and NVC coach Aki Salmi helped me to formulate these statements using different phrases to avoid having the same text on each card again and again: For example: "I value the usage of short-cuts as effective and as sign of ongoing mastery in our craft." "I am touched to see courage in situations of uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure." "I am amazed by critical questions based on creativity and independent thought." "I am inspired by the integrity and consistency of sticking to principles in difficult situations." The process of finding the right words alone strengthened my ability to express my feelings dramatically.

Scrutiny
Some of my appreciation cards celebrate learning, including stepping out of one's comfort zone, which is required for learning. One card I of these is titled "Scrutiny", subtitled Correct me when I am wrong. It shows a Whistle icon (by Delapouite CC BY 3.0) and the appreciation is "I am proud when you correct me, showing independence and competence." It does not happen often - still sometimes in a pairing or ensemble session, my focus may slip and I make a mistake or do not call out a mistake on time. And then, sometimes, someone else does.

Growth
There is a common theme in most of my cards: growth. Now that I have seen it, it is obvious to me. Growth is one of my major needs. I want to grow - e.g. learning new languages and other stuff regularly. And I want the people I coach and work with to grow, too. My second motto - surfacing around 2013 - "Developing Quality Software Developers" expresses that clearly. I want them to grow, to learn, to improve - and I am inspired and amazed the most, when they exceed me.

Snatch the Pebble From My Hand
There is nothing more satisfying than when a pupil exceeds his or her master. This is often depicted in movies, where a student must learn a lot, for example in Kung Fu movies: In the television series Kung Fu, Caine is an orphan and is accepted into a Shaolin Monastery. Part of the Shaolin way of life is strengthening the body and the mind. For example, one of Caine's teachers asks him to "snatch the pebble from my hand":


Then, after many years of training, Caine is finally able to beat his master:


What a satisfying moment, and Caine's master smiles. This is one of my favourite TV moments ;-) Like being corrected (see Scrutiny card above), "snatch the pebble from my hand" situations make me proud of my students.

Make Me Look Like a Baby
I want to leave you with a quote from a different and maybe more controversial source of motivation than Caine, ex Navy SEAL member Jocko Willink: Don't try and be like me. Be better than me. Crush me. Make me look like a baby. That's what you do. (Even better when he says it himself.) - OK, maybe there is too much testosterone here ;-)

In Memory of Ruby

Meet Ruby, our dog. Ruby was a Great Dane. If you are not into dogs, Great Danes are known for their size, being one of the largest dog breeds in the world. Great Danes are also known for their friendly nature and are often referred to as a "gentle giants".


Ruby lived well beyond the average lifespan of her breed of six to eight years and passed away last month with an age of ten. She died of old age in our arms. This was - and still is - a sad and painful situation which only dog lovers can understand.

(And of course, Ruby was named after the Ruby programming language, my favourite programming language of that time.)