Curling Software

Over the past few months, I have the pleasure-filled dumb luck of working with a very smart and very funny person to review and edit a book about producing software written by a very smart and very funny mutual friend and mentor.

In anticipation of reviewing the final chapters, the very smart and very funny co-reviewer of the book, who coincidently is learning the sport of curling, tweeted to me from the Bemidji Curling Club about our upcoming collaborative editing session. I paraphrase the tweet:

Hopefully we'll get a good rock, take it to the house, and land it on the button.

All I know about curling is what I've learned from Wikipedia, but I'm a sucker for metaphors that help me understand what is we software developers do.

I haven't made a resolution for the new year, but I hope the upcoming decade is one where I can distill the navel-gazing goo that oozes like a Jell-O drip in our community, see things clearly and do some practical things with a healthy dose of humility that makes incremental progress.

Curling software is the anti-movement software movement. Curling software needs no manifesto.  And

We don't need no damn certifications

Curling developers out there know who you are. We're the people in black wool top coats and hats waving our brooms... unlike all the folks traveling to conferences in the neighborhood of make believe to talk about waving brooms.

Our call to action is simple, since all we do is

move the rock

Our goals are straight-forward, since we team up to

take it to the house

Our ultimate quest is somewhat elusive - like the meaning of life - nonetheless that doesn't stop us from trying to

land it on the button

Sidebar

• The book, written by a very smart and very funny friend and mentor is coming soon to the Pragmatic Bookshelf.
• The curling competition of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics will be held at the Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre in Vancouver, BC.
• Curling is on my bucket list.