Boredom-Driven Development - Omaha
📍This month, Arthur Doler is giving a talk: Boredom-Driven Development: The Dark Bargain at the Heart of Software
👏 Special thanks to Improving for hosting NebraskaJS at their offices and for sponsoring food.
Schedule
5:30PM - arrive - eat food
6:00PM - Talk Starts
~7:30PM - Head to The Hill for drinks and continued discussion (optional)
Talk Summary
Novelty shapes more of our technical decisions than we'll ever admit. We justify our choices and call it resume-driven development but the reality is our own boredom drives us towards complexity and ruin.
We are bored because we have struck a dark bargain with malign forces who keep us trapped in a prison forged of our very desire to code. We are each a digital Prometheus, bound to a treadmill of features and beset daily by eagles carrying KPIs. That torture pushes us to seek relief with novelty - and the technical ecosystem is all too happy to keep providing us with an endless hype cycle to jam into our veins.
The end result: overcomplicated, overwrought, and underthought systems that squander the promise of software and make everyone's lives worse.
Why does boredom make us vulnerable? Why does the treadmill of technologies entice us? Why did our forebears strike the bargain that binds us, and why have we let ourselves remain bound? Why not expand our focus to the whole of an application? Why not find interest in solving problems and making people's lives better?
Let's unwind the past in spite of dwelling in a system that treats us as semi-autonomous code-producing agents. Let's focus our craft on outcomes beyond features shipped and tickets done. Let's bend boredom to our advantage instead of following its siren call. Come along on this cross-cutting, well-illustrated ride through software and psychology, and break the chains that have kept you bound!
Notes
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