Delivering Great Developer Experiences with Platform Engineering - A whole lot of first hand accounts of building and running developer platforms. (1) the platform should include CI/CD tooling, and I presume how to package and configure apps for production, (2) use developer surveys to track usage and needs, (3) product manage the platform, with a variation being to run it like an open source project to get the benefits of transparency (and inherent product management), (4) lots of training and workshops, (5) use chat instead of tickets.
Docker Launches 2024 State of Application Development Report - Survey for future newsletter analysis.
PDF to Podcast - Could be super cool.
The breath of the gods - Video influencer technique: have the video format/style match the medium. // “I have uploaded a different version to the great algorithmic mills, where the breath of the gods upon a scrap of video can propel it” And: “The smile, with the wince: that’s the overall expression of the 2020s internet."
How CIOs can ease the generative AI transition for developers - “AI-powered coding tools are expected to become fairly ubiquitous within enterprises in the next four years, according to Gartner research. The analyst firm predicts around three-quarters of software engineers will add AI coding assistants to their workflows by 2028, a considerable jump from the 1 in 10 enterprise developers leveraging the tools early last year [2023].” And: “why would I hire junior developers who can write crummy code when I can have a generic AI do it for me."
Measuring Engineering Productivity, at Google, circa 2020 - “If the decider doesn’t believe the form of the result in principle, there is again no point in measuring the process.” // Some great advice in here about improvement programs. Come up with metrics and needs from the (economic/strategic) stakeholder who has the power to make changes. Ask them what metrics they care about and study those. Otherwise they won’t care about the results.
Developer Experience: What not to do - In summary: don’t be enterprise software. Less crass: be easy/instant to install and run, and have good docs that explain how to do [I’d say 2 to 3 example apps/uses]. Even better: be a SaaS, at least have that as an option. All of this advice is pretty difficult for a full on, private cloud platform to do. You can’t just “install a cloud” in a few minutes and mess around with it. Let alone, like, multi-region, etc. I think. Maybe someone could figure it out? That would actually be a good sign: if your platform is easy to install for demo’ing, it will probably be easy to install for reals.
How to Evaluate Video Performance in Developer Relations - The answer: track CTAs.
Developer Productivity Metrics at Top Tech Companies - Good stuff! Lots of emphasis on happiness/satisfaction. These are all from tech companies, though: no tradition enterprise responses (right?). Yes, and: what would it look like if you surveyed the top three organizations in manufacturing, banking, pharmaceuticals, and tax ministries?
Zoom CEO envisions AI deepfakes attending meetings in your place - AIs “are terrible tools for delegating decision making to. That’s currently my red line for using them: any time someone outsources actual decision making authority to an opaque random number generator is a recipe for disaster."