As developers, we need to receive frequent knowledge downloads from other sources to enhance our skillsets and help us think in new ways. There are all kinds of sources where this can come from: online training, YouTube, Pluralsight, books, classes, and so on. One of my favorite ways to help me think new thoughts are podcasts. What follows is a list of my favorite podcasts, the ones that I listen to on a regular basis. Some are developer focused and some are not. You shouldn’t limit your sources of knowledge
Month: October 2017
Avoid Burnout: Take Time To Unplug
One of the biggest struggles that developers face is burnout. I’ve seen it happen time and time and time again. We do too much. We work 40, 50, 60 or more hours a week in an office doing development work, then come home and spend another 20, 30 or more hours at home working on our personal projects or side clients. Add to all that the various levels of personal commitments we might outside of development, be it family, church, charity work, and so forth. All that time takes its toll and, if we’re not careful, it overwhelms us and we burn out. It happened to me.
The Worthlessness of Project Estimates: Why We Still Do Them
Whether we are developers, project managers, business analysts, stakeholders or anyone else involved in the software development process, we all know that estimates for software development are always wrong: ALWAYS. I have never once been involved in a software project that met it’s estimates or even came close. Sometimes we get the job done earlier than estimated, but usually it runs over. You know it. I know it. We all know it. Even if that estimate seems reasonable at the time we do it, it always ends up being wrong. So why do we still bother to do them?