Windows XP

Mentoring and Sharing

One way to send others Joy is through Mentoring. Today I observed a group mentoring session that went very well. The session leader (Mike) reviewed a few key object-oriented architectural points on a whiteboard and then using a projector began working through a real coding example. The attendees learned and contributed as the group worked to inherently ensure greater levels of happy code or joy within the code such as by enhancing related simplicity, beauty and reusability. Near the end of the session an attendee (Jeff) was given a chance to demonstrate the effectiveness of the session. Quickly he connected his machine to the projector and reapplied the code changes from scratch in front of the group. Next week a Computer Science graduate from the local university will have an opportunity to work for at least a couple of weeks with the newly formed AYR SWAT. While embedded within the SWAT he will be mentored by Jeff in various regards including with respect to CSS. This leads me into mentioning another way to send Joy, by Sharing. Jeff and the local computer science university grad will be sharing a few tasks and applying aspects of XP as they do so. At this juncture this post also shares awareness of a couple of CSS sites (i.e., 1, 2). By the way, the mentoring session noted above was productive in more ways than one as it concurrently ensured various changes were implemented for a client. You might say the session contained bits of viip (value-inherent, intrinsic and pervasive) as the client received in the process new functionality, visual site enhancements and innately cleaner code. Much thanks to the team for innovatively combining education, fun and productivity. I take no credit however, the accomplishment was self-directed by the team. On a closing note for this post, it is important to share that one means of ensuring greater inherent quality simplicity is having professional software engineers who are responsible and accountable for the processes and code they produce and use to deliver services that meet or exceed the requirements and expectations of their clients.