M. Scott Ford talks with Dave Rael about making something better, the toll of harsh criticism, technical focus, and identifying needs
Leading the Corgibytes technical team is Scott, who has been called the “Bob Vila of the internet.” Scott is a polyglot developer who, at last count, is fluent in over twenty programming languages. Scott’s love of software restoration and remodeling began in college where he and his team were responsible for retrofitting the testing tools for the X-31 jet fighter. Since then, Scott has maintained a test-focused approach to his work and found the most joy in projects where an existing codebase needed to be improved. Scott is currently working on his first book Software Remodeling: A DIY Approach to Transforming Your Legacy Code.
Chapters:
- - Dave introduces the show and Scott Ford
- - The nature of CorgiBytes and reasons for the focus on legacy code
- - Multiple roles in a relationship - both business partners and a wife/husband team
- - The appeal of starting with something undesirable and making it better
- - Being a business owner in addition to a technical wizard
- - An organization of "code whisperers," identifying what a project needs and driving improvement
- - Both technical and nontechnical - good with machines, not with humans
- - Scott's approach to social interactions and becoming a conference speaker
- - How Scott got started in software
- - Scott, the polyglot - why and how
- - Choosing new tools, even on legacy projects
- - Scott's story of failure - realizing completion of a project would not be worth the time and effort
- - Scott's story of success - continual, incremental improvement
- - How Scott stays current with what he needs to know
- - Scott's book recommendation
- - The things about which Scott likes to geek out
- - Scott's top 3 tips for delivering more value
- - Keeping up with Scott
Resources:
- CorgiBytes - Scott's Business
- Legacy Code Rocks!
- Andrea Goulet on Developer On Fire
- Eric Lawrence on Developer On Fire
- Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software - Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides
- Becoming Technical - Andrea Goulet, Jocelyne Morin-Nurse
- Code Climate
Scott's book recommendation:
Scott's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
- Commit to get better at something - be honest about where you are, then measure where you are and measure as you improve
- Experiment more
- Try to stay positive