Brian Marick

Oddly Influenced

Technology EN ↓ 55 episodes

A podcast about how people have applied ideas from outside software to software.

Author

Brian Marick

Episodes

Interview: Downsides of packages, upsides of jUnit (with Elisabeth Hendrickson and Chris McMahon) ("Packages", Part 4) 29.08.2022 34:37

Guests Elisabeth Hendrickson, @testobsessed , Curious Duck Digital Laboratory Chris McMahon, @chris_mcmahon , blog Citations Crafting Science: A Sociohistory of the Quest for the Genetics of Cancer , Joan Fujimura, 1997. Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing , Elisabeth Hendrickson, 2012.

Theories of What? or: Richard Rorty Weighs in on TDD ("Packages", Part 3) 22.08.2022 23:00

Citations Crafting Science: A Sociohistory of the Quest for the Genetics of Cancer , Joan Fujimura, 1997. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity , Richard Rorty, 1989. Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns , Kent Beck, 1996. Ward Cunningham on "working the program" , 2004. The Mathematical Experience , Phillip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh, 1980. "Elephant Talk", King Crimson, 1981 (audio). "Hammock-Driven Dev...

jUnit and What Makes a Successful Tool ("Packages", Part 2) 15.08.2022 21:47

Recombinant DNA ("gene splicing") was a wildly successful technology in the world of cell biology. Its success gave credibility to the associated "proto-oncogene theory of cancer." The theory piggy-backed on the tool. jUnit was a fairly successful tool in the world of Java programmers. But it was not as successful as recombinant DNA, and it was fairly unsuccessful at promoting its associated theor...

E2: Viruses, Cancer, TDD, and "Packages": Part 1 08.08.2022 20:06

When TDD arrived on the software scene around 1980, it became popular very fast. Why did it succeed so well? I think it's because it was a combined theory and technology that hit the same "sweet spot" of intellectual infectiousness that the "proto-oncogene theory of cancer" did in the 1980's. Most of this episode is a history of the proto-oncogene theory. The next episode will look at case studies...

E1: Boundary Objects 19.07.2022 21:10

The episode builds from the paper “ Institutional Ecology, 'Translations', and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-1939 ”. It contains a brief history of how biology was changing around 1907, how scientists and collectors collaborated using "boundary objects", and how acceptance tests can be seen as boundary objects. It ends with some heret...