The Zeitgeist of Software Development

Last updated on Mon Mar 20 2023•zeitgeist web development software development frontend backend devops

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist (opens in a new tab)

The definition for Zeitgeist from a google search:

The defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time.

Below is a collection of what I'd say make up part of the Zeitgeist that is the tech industry and working as a Software Developer.

Two Hard Things (opens in a new tab)

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. -- Phil Karlton

Startup = Growth (opens in a new tab)

Written by Paul Graham (opens in a new tab) who is well known for various things in tech such as co-founding Y Combinator (opens in a new tab)

Things You Should Never Do (opens in a new tab)

Written by Joel Spolsky (opens in a new tab) who is well known for various things in tech such as co-founding Glitch née Fog Creek Software (opens in a new tab) and Trello (opens in a new tab)

State of DevOps (opens in a new tab)

For the last eight years, Google have produced the State of DevOps (opens in a new tab) report, hearing from over 33,000 professionals worldwide

Product Engineers (opens in a new tab)

Written by Sherif Mansour (opens in a new tab) who is an absolute grand wizard of Product Management

Engineering Archetypes (opens in a new tab)

Expanding on the above article from Sherif – a well known way of assessing software engineers and the classic archetypes folks fall into. We use a version of this is in performance assessments at Atlassian and are constantly expanding upon and improving it.

Alice and Bob (opens in a new tab)

Alice and Bob are fictional characters commonly used as placeholders in discussions about cryptographic systems and protocols, and in other science and engineering literature where there are several participants in a thought experiment.

Conway's Law (opens in a new tab)

Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure. -- Melvin Conway