Watching
During lunch, I watch videos from conferences. This week my favorites were:
The second one has a nice quotable passage:
A good API will let you be lazy.
A great API will empower you to be really lazy.
Reading
Started reading:
- The Design of Web APIs by Arnaud Lauret. I’ve got a hard copy, yay!
- Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, and Jill Butler. There is a newer shorter edition, but I decided to try out the original one first. It was available in the local library, but I had to wait almost two months in the request queue: the book is old yet still relevant.
Learning
Alan and Brent talk a lot about basing feature development on testable hypotheses. Brent mentioned that he doesn’t even use the word “requirements” anymore.
And just in time came a Coursera’s newsletter with the link to Hypothesis-Driven Development course, which is a part four out of five in the agile development specialization. So, ideally, you shouldn’t start with it. Nevertheless, I’ve finished the first week’s materials and looks like time spent will be worthwhile.
Though, there are some problems:
- The instructor seems to sell his “venture design process.” That doesn’t make that methodology inherently bad, but keep it in mind.
- The way he talks makes hard for me to concentrate. Too choppy.
The course is short, so I’ll give it a chance (perhaps to the whole specialization).