Andrew Burke has been a professional independent developer for over 20 years, working in everything from HyperCard and Lotus Notes to Ruby on Rails and iOS. Besides building software for various businesses, he teaches web development, speaks at conferences, and has several SaaS products and iOS apps on the side. In his spare time, he also does fan art mash-ups of iconic science fiction ships and characters with equally iconic Nova Scotian scenery – which are surprisingly popular in Halifax.
In this episode, Derek Hatchard and Ron Smith talk with Andrew about some weird things about time and what lessons software professionals can learn from history. From politicians and Popes debugging algorithms to century-long deployments of changes, it’s a radically different scale than a typical software project.
Where to find Andrew Burke
@ajlburke on Twitter
On the web at http://www.shindigital.com/
Andrew’s other projects include:
His “4 Weird Things About Time” talk from ConFoo Montreal is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM3LUB_MVa4
Transcript
Derek: Welcome to the Ardent Development. I’m Derek Hatchard, here with Ron Smith. And today we are talking with Andrew Burke. Andrew has been a professional independent developer for over twenty years working in everything from HyperCard and Lotus Notes to Ruby and iOS. In addition to building software for various businesses, he teaches web development, speaks at conferences and has several SaaS products and iOS apps on the side. And in his spare time, he also does fan art mashups of iconic science fiction ships and characters which are surprisingly popular. So welcome Andrew. It’s good to have you on.
Andrew: Thanks. Good to be here.
Derek: Today we’re talking about weird things about time. I guess it was 2015, you did that talk. An insanely popular talk. Talking about time has me thinking we are recording this in December which starts with the DEC which to me means 10 but December is the 12th month of the year.
Andrew: That’s the first weird thing about time I talk about. Anybody who’s a programmer knows that the closer you look at things like times and dates the weirder it gets. I’ve had a lot of times in my career where I get really frustrated with time and date tracking. The last four months of the year have the wrong name. September has a 7 in it but it’s actually the ninth month and so does October and November. What’s funny is that a lot of people figure that it’s because people added July and August. But it turns out those months were actually named quintilis and sextilis before they were renamed.
Ron: It still kind of feels that way in January and February right?
Andrew: Exactly. I kind of thought about having, like in the Maritimes we could have a month called terrible until spring. There’s nothing to do and if you’re a farmer or a warrior, you would wait until you could do stuff.
Derek: It’s fascinating how the origins of our timekeeping reflect on challenges developers face today.
Andrew: Exactly. There’s always something new in the news that demonstrates the weirdness of time. For instance, every country seems to have its own different way of handling daylight savings time, and they change all the time. Leap years and leap seconds are another big deal and always cause issues for software systems.
Derek: You covered so much great material in your talk. What were some of the lessons and takeaways you wanted software professionals to glean?
Andrew: One big takeaway is that technology ends up being cultural. The problems we face in software today often echo issues from history. Understanding this gives us broader context and can help us navigate complex problems we encounter in our projects.
Andrew: Something as simple as tracking events like Easter can be complicated due to discrepancies between lunar and solar calendars. Knowing about these historical timekeeping practices makes us aware of how complicated systems can impact software development.
Ron: You have these unique perspectives that illuminate the challenges faced in coding today.
Andrew: Exactly. I think that studying history helps remind us that everyone deals with difficult problems. We don’t have to feel alone in our challenges.
Derek: Well, we appreciate your insights today, Andrew. Everyone should check out your talk, it’s a fun listen!