0250 - Programming as Craft with Roland Tritsch

Today we’re talking with Roland Tritsch, about software engineering, the increasing relevance of functional programming, and his thoughts on the implications of using genAI in the development process. Our student hosts are: Lora, Noah, Mynah, Austen, Fionn, and Sergio, with Lucas on sound, and our audience is the class of 2025 studying the Contemporary Software Development module taught by Mel Ó Cinnéide.

First, Roland, can you set the context and explain what it means to be a software craftsman?

• What value there is in functional programming both technically and from a business perspective? 
• Are coverage tools widely used in practice, what value do they bring and what is the state of the Scoverage project?
• If you were assessing a code base for quality, what are the main aspects you would look for in the code?
• Talk about some of the non-technical factors at play in refactoring and code reviews.
• If you had to strip it back to the basics; what aspects of Agile are key for any successful software development process?
• In your view, what impact will GenAI have on software development and is now a good time to be graduating with a CS degree? 

Notes

Roland’s website and blog: https://tedn.life/

Roland is one of the committers on `scoverage` (together with Chris Kipp) - https://github.com/scoverage

And, as ‘the Augmented Software Engineer’ Roland is the host for a series of meetups dealing with the impact and implications of genAI upon the practice and profession of software engineering.

https://www.meetup.com/the-augmented-software-engineer/

Further reading

Jošt et al “The Impact of Large Language Models on Programming Education and Student Learning Outcomes” (2024) - link

Becker et al, “Programming Is Hard – Or at Least It Used to Be”, (2023) - link

Karaci Deniz et al, “Unleashing Developer Productivity with generative-AI”, McKinsey & Company, (2023) - link

Acknowledgements

Music 

Title: Faceplant with UK Garage

Artist: Allen Higgins

Source:  a-Wed23Oct2024

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Includes samples from Ableton Live by Ableton AG and by KORG Inc.

Cover Art 

Title: Complex collage

Artist: Allen Higgins

Source: vignette_version.pptx

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Podcast License

Design Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 

The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0

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