Introduction

As part of my personal growth, I have decided to go back to what captivated my attention in computers when growing up. I was introduced to computers in the time of the ZX Spectrum at around eleven years old. I was sick at home, during the summer holidays, with nothing better to do then to read the computer’s manual and write a game. Have you ever tried to write a computer game using BASIC? Looking back, it doesn’t look as fun as it did back then 🙂 I wrote a game that was like whack-a-mole, but without a hammer to whack them: you would shoot them. Since then, I have never stopped programming and never lost the love for it.

Have you ever seen the great ones do some katas? See how the master works through the code and changes it so effortlessly? It seems like magic, doesn’t it? But they are just humans like us. Whether you follow Martin Fowler, Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin or Kent Beck, you’ve probably seen some of their katas. If fact, you can find videos of them trying new techniques like we do, like seeing Kent Beck doing some TCR (test && commit || revert). It is through deliberate practice and being humble that they, and also we, can become better at what we do. We never know everything. There is always something we can learn and something we can improve. If we stop practicing and we assume we know it all, that is a good recipe to let our Ego destroy our careers and our lives.