How do I introduce Steve? I am trying to remember when I first met Steve. That’s hard, Steve is the kind of guy who seems to be shy and in the background. Yet, when he says something, people listen. Today I noticed that I followed a session of him and Joseph Pelrine At xpdays 2005. Only I don’t remember him from the session. I like that, because that shows that Steve lets his message be more important then his person. And in the end, people will remember that. (At least that is how it works for me.) Steve was a founder and one of the driving forces behind XTC).
He wrote Growing Object-oriented Software guided by tests. A wonderful book that explains why and how to do TDD (And should be mandatory reading for developers.)
What is something people usually don’t know about you but has influenced you in who you are?
When I stumbled into software, back in the Paleozoic era (Pascal with punch cards on an ICL Atlas), one of the things that attracted me into the game was that the previous generation I met was full of interesting misfits. They’d fallen into the industry because it was interesting and at the time there was no formal career path to weed them out.
If you would not have been in IT, what would have become of you?
Maybe a statistician, it’s where I had my best grades. Either that or a failed musician.
What is your biggest challenge and why is it a good thing for you?
My impatience. I would have been able to get more done by letting things take their course.
What drives you?
Wanting to build stuff that’s actually useful to someone. It turns out to be surprisingly difficult to arrange.
What is your biggest achievement?
my family
What is the last book you have read?
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer Appalling, if true.
What question do you think I should also ask and what is the answer?
What would you most like to change in the software industry?
Too few people have ever had a really good development experience. Most literally don’t know what they’re missing, so they can’t make realistic trade-offs. I’d love to find a way to make that more widely available.
Who do you think I should ask next?