Paul Sobocinski

Engineering Director @thoughtworks. Breaking production code since '04. “Short cuts make long delays.” Opinions are my own; more on my blog 👇

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

🌐 Global Day of Coderetreat Toronto is back! 🌐

Join us at Thoughtworks Canada’s shiny new office in downtown Toronto for a day of deliberate practice in Software Development.

💪 Coderetreat is a day to exercise your software development muscles.

🚢 Away from the everyday pressures of, “just get it done”, Coderetreat invites us to challenge ourselves in ways we don't get to at work.

✨ That means focusing on what our best work could look like – be it the simplest design, the most expressive tests, or the most readable code.

🤝 We also get to meet and catch up with other professionals in the software industry by actually writing software together!

💻 Fair warning – you’ll be spending almost the whole day coding so come prepared with a laptop and power supply.

All in all, Global Day of Coderetreat is a unique opportunity to learn through deliberate practice while creating meaningful and memorable connections with other software developers.

We hope you’ll join us!
👩‍💻👩‍💻 👩‍💻🧑‍💻 🧑‍💻👨‍💻

📆DATE: Saturday, November 9th, 2024

#gdcr2024 #coderetreat

Register here: https://t.co/aVZnxBvlZ6

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

@ThatEricAlper Nice example of confirmation bias

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

@pli_cachete The first rocket version still had to be built well enough to work (i.e. get payloads to orbit).

What you point out is iterative refinement based on optimizing feedback loops, which is a universal concept in modern engineering (but especially critical in software).

[Toronto’s Global Day of Coderetreat @gdcrTO]

We’re all set for #coderetreat today. Are you?

#gdcr2024

PS: don’t forget your laptop!

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

#LeadDevNewYork is a wrap!

To all the organizers, speakers, and attendees — thank you for an unforgettable experience! 🙌

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

An under-estimated skill! #LeadDev2024

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

Jason Wodicka’s tools for giving help #LeadDevNewYork

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

“Iceberg requests” … im totally stealing this @yaphi1 ! #LeadDevNewYork

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

Product roadmaps really being, “Something with X” for decades. Ain’t that the truth. #LeadDev

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

Hypotheses, not features! #LeadDev

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

#LeadDev inclusive / welcoming vibes ❤️

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

@allenholub If they band together with like-minded co-workers, they might have leverage on how their education budget is spent.

On the other hand I don’t see how they’d ever get leverage on an organizational change budget, which is probably what you are gunning for.

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

I never ask for permission to refactor. But I often ask for help.

Don’t confuse asking for help with asking for permission.

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

Silos happen when the person...

- Good at the thing
- Responsible for the thing
- Doing the thing

... is the same person. Collaboration means that these can be different people.

It requires that people can be trusted to do things right and ask for help when they need it.

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

Therefore, the core of what we do as software developers will not change.

We won't be replaced.

How we do software development, however, will change radically. And LLM-powered AI tools will be pivotal in this change.

More on this to come!

9/9

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

A programming language optimized for LLMs to write and maintain would be very terse, to maximize the lines of code that can fit inside of an LLM's context window. It could look like minified JS or something else entirely.

Source code would become indecipherable to humans.

6/9

[Paul Sobocinski @sobes]

Consequently, we’ll still need humans who can exist outside the system while simultaneously being deeply involved inside the system.

Only in this way can software developers effectively reflect on and adjust both the problem being solved and how it’s being solved.

8/9