Comments on: Making developers happy

By: ptsefton » Developer happiness and associated meetings

ptsefton » Developer happiness and associated meetings — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:09:57 +0000

[...] they’d like to see and met Nick Short of the Royal Veterinary College, London.Paul Walk describes this process whereby users were invited to engage with developers:One of the things which stood out at dev8D was [...]

By: Joss Winn

Joss Winn — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:25:50 +0000

[I accidentally submitted my rant before I was finished]…

There is also the reoccurring and tired argument that technology should not drive pedagogy but support and enhance it. Again, this effectively situates developers in a supporting role in education, rather than as collaborators and enablers without whom education would be stifled and increasingly ineffective for learners.

By: Joss Winn

Joss Winn — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:04:32 +0000

I agree with the comment above although to JISC’s credit I think they understand the importance of developers more than many institutions where they are still seen as ‘IT staff’ or required for maintaining legacy library systems and assisting with online marketing. Developers should be likened to researchers with a distinct community of peers, mature tool sets and productive methodologies. They should be supported in their own right rather than as merely adding value to and supporting institutional processes and practices. Perhaps their productivity is seen as a threat to institutional stability? The weight of the institution is often too great to move in time with the rapid innovations being made in the world of code. There is also the reocurring and tired argument that technology should not drive pedagogy but support and enhance it.

By: Matt Jukes

Matt Jukes — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:54:12 +0000

I followed the event as best as possible throughout the week via Twitter and the Dev8D blog and have to say I was massively impressed. Congrats to Dave, Ben and the others for running such a great event and kudos to Rachel and Andy who seem to have been the driving forces within JISC.

I hope its just the start of something within the wider JISC community rather than just a one off as I think it demonstrates just what a talented and dedicated group of people work in that world and like you said in the past I think JISC hasn’t really focused enough on the folk getting their hands dirty with the code…