Coding Is Like Cooking

The full programme for SDC2009 in March will be published in about a week’s time, but I can already tell it will be a great event. The call for papers is now closed, and the website has been updated with photos of all the booked speakers. With only one day of talks, it looks like there will be a lot to choose from.

I’m really looking forward to hearing international software gurus like Jeff Sutherland and Neal Ford, as well as lots of cool people from Scandinavia. Clicking through the photos on the front page, there are several faces I recognize as leading agile proponents. It’s actually a bit of a shock to see my own headshot there in the lineup.

What do you have to do to get me to come and work for your company? Well, it seems a couple of free lunches and some good geeky conversation works pretty well. Of course, it helps if you’re also offering me an exciting mix of software development work, high calibre colleagues and speaking engagements, all on my doorstep here in Gothenburg. So anyway, yesterday I signed on the dotted line for IBS JavaSolutions AB.

JavaSolutions is responsible for the local branch of Sun’s JavaForum, which exists to support Java developers. There are regular meetings with talks and mingle, a bit like GothPy only on Java and without the interactive coding part. Hmm. I might have to do something about that 🙂 JavaSolutions also has a blog that employees are expected to contribute to. So I will have to devise some strategy for what to blog here and what to blog there.

My first appearance in my new role will be at agile2008 in Toronto, Canada, at the beginning of August. I’ll be leading a session about Automated Acceptance Testing with my husband, Geoff. During the rest of the conference I will probably be going to lots of stuff to do with agile development and testing in Java. Having spent the last 6 years working in python, I’ll need to brush up my Java a little.

So I’m looking forward to a fun autumn coding, learning stuff, and getting involved with GothPy and JavaForum. For the moment though, I plan to make the most of the Swedish summer together with two small children.

Miranda was born last Thursday, a healthy little girl 53cm long and weighing 3.77kg. Her big sister Karina, (now three and a half) and Geoff and I are all doing well.

I hope to be at home with Miranda for about 6 months, so I don’t expect to write much here for a while.

Hello.
I’m a bit nervous actually. I haven’t had a blog before. I’m hoping that it will turn into a place for me to write interesting articles about coding, which is an activity I enjoy. (I enjoy cooking too but I don’t expect I will be writing about that so much.)

I hope I might comment on stuff other people write on the web. I also hope my writing skills might improve by doing so. So we’ll see. I think someone wrote that the average blogger gives up after about 3 months so that might happen too. I am expecting a baby in about 8 weeks time so I may not even last that long. Anyway, my next post should be more interesting than this one.