#cynefin

[daily-fandragon]

Day 119

Revali from Legend of Zelda by Cynefin

[thehelplessmortals]

For the record, idk if anyone cares, but my voice claim for Braigiar is Owen Shiers of Cynefin. The most beautiful comforting voice. Go listen to his “Cân Dyffryn Clettwr” (my all time favourite song maybe ever). His singing itches my brain just so

But literally any of them. This started as a Braigiar post but became a “listen to my favourite singer” post. The vocals in “Faerdre Fach” are very much how he’s singing the song in my fic.

“Braigiar's voice had lowered in the years and was now rich and soft, almost elven in its sweetness”

I intend to mean Owen Shiers. That is all.

[agapi-kalyptei]

How to be a senior developer, pt. 1

Since I'm making a presentation for work, i figured I might as well write it out.

In this part I'll explain my viewpoint, and point out to Shuhari, vertical slices, kata, and the Cynefin framework as helpful tools for figuring out where you are.

In next three parts I'll explain what I think it means to be a good junior, experienced, and senior developer.

About me and the purpose of this talk/article

I don't especially care to impress you and establish my credibility in detail. I'm not the wisest coolest fastest developer you've ever seen, but I've been programming for ~35 years and spent most of my adult life as a professional software developer and architect. I never sought leadership or management positions, but I've been involved in hiring, onboarding, documentation, etc.

The purpose of this is to give you something to think about, to gain some clarity about how to progress. This is not a technical tutorial or life hack or your therapy session.

Classic warning labels

I’m not your dad, it’s your life, I won't tell you what to do with your career.

This is not a criticism of any of you, and please don’t come at me with “this doesn’t apply to me actually”. I will likely say something like "senior dev should know this" and you might be a senior and not know it, it's fine. This is not an appraisal, I'm not your boss, your happiness doesn't depend on me.

And even when I use the labels "junior", "experienced" and "senior" developer, I see zero benefit in assigning you three rigid categories. We're all dumb in our own ways, we're all clever and wise in our own ways.

Let's begin.

Shuhari

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari

Shu-ha-ri (守破離) is a way of viewing mastery of any skill as three stages. Instead of using the more typical western idea of having "experts" who are people who just Know a lot, it instead focuses on how you interact with the skill.

In very simplified terms, it's obeying the rules and respecting the tradition (Shu), then evolving the existing rules by breaking them bit by bit (Ha), and eventually detaching yourself from the usual wisdom and rules and just vibing (Ri).

A simple way to remember the Shuhari stages - follow the rules, break the rules, transcend the rules.

Another way to look at it is mimicking others (Shu), taking a step back and understanding context (Ha) and having a global perspective (Ri).

For example, I've made 1500-2000 pancakes over the past 13 years. I started by following the existing recipe and measures (Shu). I started trying different variations and ingredients from different recommendations (still Shu).

Eventually I started breaking the traditional recipes by adding ingredients that didn't seem expected (Ha) and improvising more.

I'm not confident I'd say I reached the Ri stage, because I still use the same basic ingredients since I have a relatively limited, desired outcome. I'd argue to really be in Ri level of mastery I'd have to have a MacGyver-like flexibility when it comes to ingredients.

At that's fine. Not everyone needs to be a guru.

The important thing is - someone at Ri level of making pancakes isn't just making Shu level pancakes very very fast.

A "Shu" developer repeats what they learned in school, copy pastes from Stack Overflow, follows advice of senior developers, makes simple CRUD REST endpoints.

A "Ha" developer can improve on existing tooling or workflow, remove more complex technical debt and knows when to have exceptions to common rules.

A "Ri" developer is someone who invents workflows, architecture, enterprise patterns, combines tech stack in creative ways, and doesn't necessarily follow hype.

It should be noted that in real world, developers don't have infinite freedom because of practical considerations - audits, legal requirements, ISO certifications, Jira, limitations in your employees' know-how, etc. I can't just develop something in COBOL and then deploy it outside of a Kubernetes cluster just cause it would be a cool way to solve a problem, it needs to fit into the company goals and needs and policies.

This, sadly, also means that a company can restrict your growth in some ways. It doesn't mean you can't grow, but you can't grow in any possible way imaginable. Choose your battles, etc.

Why is this useful?

It might give you a better framework for analyzing your skill set than "junior" "intermediate" "expert". Shuhari isn't about the amount of your knowledge, it's about how you practice your skill and what is your current approach to learning.

And again - being on Shu level doesn't mean your bad / evil / stupid / incompetent / slow / dumb / etc.

Kata

This is not a new or difficult concept. Kata are the unit tests of your skills. The best way to learn is in small pieces. Sometimes all you need to do is write a few lines of code in REPL.

ADHD and others

This is not a medical advice, but keep in mind that you might prefer different learning style than others. Some people like to RTFM. Some want to dive in and try it on their own. You'll have to balance finding and using the style you prefer, but also remembering the limitations of each method. Watching youtube doesn't give you actual experience. Reading the manual doesn't help you remember everything. Trial and error programming won't alert you to potential pitfalls the code will have in edge cases.

The most effective method is, always was, and always will be having a mentor.

Remember to take breaks. Fresh air, clean water, healthy, varied diet, regular movement and exercise. With both diet and exercise, adopt an additive mindset - sure you might be eating a greasy frozen pizza, but if you add some spinach, rucola, tomatoes, peppers on top of it, you're eating _some_ vegetables. If you do only 1 push-up per day, it's infinitely more than 0 pushups.

If blaming or hating yourself for not doing enough would work, it would have worked by now.

Medication might help some. To get diagnosed with ADHD as an adult in Estonia, you must document that it's affecting your life, fulfill the diagnostic criteria, and fork out 250~350 euro for a cognitive assessment. Don't bother with state psychiatrists.

Some over the counter supplements that might or might not help: Vitamin D, Omega-3, Lecithin, Magnesium L-Threonate, Ginkgo Biloba. Caffeine stimulates your brain indiscriminately and might make it harder to concentrate, and also builds up tolerance.

Cynefin

See more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework 

Cynefin (Welsh for 'habitat', pronounced like if you take the name Kevin and make it keh-nev-in... i think) is a framework usually used for crisis management and decision making. However, you can use it to aid your learning, to help make sense of situations like production incidents, or when refining tasks during planning meetings.

One use is to look at the 5 domains and figuring out which of them are you comfortable with, and where is your current task located. The names might not be what they seem at first though. They don't represent how long will a task take.

Let's start from bottom right and then move counter-clockwise.

(1) The bottom-right domain is called Clear or Obvious or Simple or Known - it's easy to think of it as tasks like CRUD, BO page with pagination. Generally something that can be easily unit tested.

However, even more complex tasks like placing an order - where there's a lot to keep in mind, many branched pathways, legal requirements, asynchronous calls, etc, something you’d cover with a bunch of integration tests - is still considered “clear” in this framework. If there are defined rules leading to defined results, it's "Clear".

(2) Top right corner is Complicated or Knowable - e.g. an incident in production - a bug that we haven’t found, or an unidentified performance issue. The approach for these is “Sense - analyze - respond” or maybe for tasks that are not burning, “have a meetings and discuss and split the tasks". If you're feeling overwhelmed by a task, it's maybe because it's in the Complicated domain, and you need to find a way to move it to the Clear domain.

(3) Complex domain - investigating an incident where you don’t know what’s wrong and what causes it (untestable, impossible to replicate). Most likely, this is a production incident when you don't even know what's going on. Instead of looking at a dashboard and seeing "oh this endpoint is slow", it's something like "something is slow sometimes but we don't know what caused it and what is a side effect". In this domain, you would probably add more logging, create new Grafana graphs, dive deep into Kibana logs, etc.

Definitely not a domain that should be a part of feature development, unless you're way out of your depth and completely misunderstood how a given technology works.

(4) Chaos domain is not a good place to be. The cause and effect are unclear, e.g. fighting off a hacking attack. It's never happened before, there are no best practices, no playbook, best action is any action. "Have you tried turning it off and on again" style approach, but it might work on some occasions - it's better than nothing. Generally you want to move out of this domain asap.

Example 1: Improving a performance by adding an SQL index can be Simple/Clear/Obvious, but adding redis caching with invalidation to endpoints can be Complicated, if you don't know until you try, and it can be Complex, if you have cache that isn't invalidated immediately, and the impact of having an outdated cache and inconsistent data might be difficult to understand.

If you mess it up and wrong data starts showing to wrong customers, you might feel like it's chaotic because it's stressful, but you're really in Simple or Complicated situation, because you either you know you messed up the caching rules, or you don't know exactly, but have a way to measure it and find out.

(5) Confusion in the middle of the illustration - when you don’t know which one you have, best to split the problem and try to assign parts into different 4 domains.

Remember that for any situation, the domains are individual - a non-programmer can see BO acting weird (Chaotic domain or Confusion), junior dev can see slowness without an obvious cause (Complicated domain) DBA can see a missing index (Simple).

Possibly the most important thing to remember is that you can keep moving the problem between the domains.

Example 2:

implementing an existing compression algorithm is Simple.

developing a new disassembly tool, DRM, or compression is Complicated (trial and error to work around more and more tricks)

developing an algorithm that does open heart surgeries is impossible Complex

Trying to crack a brand new cipher is Chaotic because you don't know what's the content, what's the cipher, what information is there in what format, how many layers of compression, encryption and encoding are there

Example 3:

developing an illegal, unlicensed Tetris™️ prototype is simple, and there are plenty of tutorials available

developing a PvP multiplayer game is Complicated, because you'll have to measure many different unpredictable situations, strategies, and combinations to balance it

developing an MMORPG like EVE Online is Complex because there's no easy, orderly way to have 5'000 players shoot lasers at each other for 12 hours.

developing any game is Chaotic if you're an overconfident noob

Example 4:

making a fake sportsbook website without any real money is Simple

making a real sportsbook website with real money and wallet and 3rd party odds is Simple, even if it will take months

managing odds is both Complicated and Complex

making good UI for both FO and BO is Complex

making a sportsbook website that performs well under a very high load with very fast resolving is Complex because there is never any realistic load testing tool

Example 5:

fixing a bug in logic in a feature that's otherwise behaving correctly and has clean code is usually Simple

fixing a bug in a horrible spaghetti code is Complicated

fixing a bug in an OS kernel on some specific hardware that exhibits undocumented behavior is Complex

trying to fix a software bug when you actually have physical memory corruption is Chaotic

Figuring out how to use Cynefin is up to you. If nothing else, remember to try to take a step back, have a fresh look at a task that's stumping you, and figuring out why isn't the task "Simple". Usually it's one of the three - either you're lacking some technical knowledge (read the manual; Complicated -> Simple), or you're not sure how exactly it is used in our company (ask questions; Complex -> Complicated -> Simple), or you're overwhelmed by a task that's otherwise in your capacity (split the task; Complicated -> Simple).

[andallshallbewell]

[autistpride]

When you go somewhere or you meet someone and you just feel at peace

Like you just found a part of the vast world that calls to you

That you feel deep in your bones that you were meant to be there or know them

That it calls to your soul and you can't shake it

That you just see it or them and you just know

That you're home

[matticusmarineasl]

✨ NEW & SALE In Wanderlust Weekend — ((Krature)) Pearl and Abalone BOM Tail Layers + Mats — Now in Mainstore! by 🔱 Matticus Marinea 🔱 ((Krature)) Via Flickr: New ((Krature)) release at our mainstore for Wanderlust Weekend! --- Pearl is a recolor of a previous release, Abalone! It's the pastel sugary sweet twin sister to the original colorful release. Both sets of BOM layer + matching materials are in the main store for 50L each for the weekend. Afterwards they will return to Abalone's original pricing. <3 Each Box Includes ✨ One tail/fins BOM layer ✨ One set of tail/fins materials ✨ Notecard with how to add our material layers into your tail **Designed Exclusively for the Cynefin Nemissa Tail, you will need to buy this tail to use this product. You can purchase it from their marketplace**

[zoeflake]

Cynefin (Welsh)

A place where or the time when we instinctively belong or feel most connected; a place that feels like home. Ph. Lunaladee

[hiraya-rawr]

Hira!!! I’m the anon who sent the tiktok about hiraeth.

I’m so glad you found a word that resonates with you like that!! That’s so amazing honestly. I’m also so amazed that you were able to keep hira! It’s like our conversation was meant to be haha.

Thank you so much on behalf of Cymry, and I hope you know how much it’s appreciated that you took the time to educate yourself 🥺. So many people don’t even care after being educated on the word.

We have another word “Cynefin” and it means familiar, or a place where you feel welcomed for home. No origin of oppression and anyone can use it. It’s actually a lot closer to the meaning that people *think* hiraeth is now that I think about it.

Anyways, my cynefin is your blog 🥰♥️ I always have your notifications on and I look forward to every post of yours. I feel welcomed here and I enjoy your personality and writings so much.

I could've sworn I replied to this but guess I imagined it— back to you because-

you on your notifs? for me?? that's like.. really a great honor for me thank you for supporting my little blog im hsjdjejd aaaaah 🥺💓💓💓

cynefin sounds beautiful! it deserves to be known just as much as hiraeth hnndhhdsdifks eventually I'll learn to pronounce these properly! and thank you as well for telling me about these things!! there's a sad history to it but how such words persisted feels so wholesome.

Looking forward to visiting in a few years 💕 planning a trip to the UK and some other nearby countries, but nothing's set in stone yet though!