#cynefin

But literally any of them. This started as a Braigiar post but became a “listen to my favourite singer” post. The vocals in “Faerdre Fach” are very much how he’s singing the song in my fic.

“Braigiar's voice had lowered in the years and was now rich and soft, almost elven in its sweetness”

Since I'm making a presentation for work, i figured I might as well write it out.

In this part I'll explain my viewpoint, and point out to Shuhari, vertical slices, kata, and the Cynefin framework as helpful tools for figuring out where you are.

In next three parts I'll explain what I think it means to be a good junior, experienced, and senior developer.

About me and the purpose of this talk/article

I don't especially care to impress you and establish my credibility in detail. I'm not the wisest coolest fastest developer you've ever seen, but I've been programming for ~35 years and spent most of my adult life as a professional software developer and architect. I never sought leadership or management positions, but I've been involved in hiring, onboarding, documentation, etc.

The purpose of this is to give you something to think about, to gain some clarity about how to progress. This is not a technical tutorial or life hack or your therapy session.

Classic warning labels

I’m not your dad, it’s your life, I won't tell you what to do with your career.

This is not a criticism of any of you, and please don’t come at me with “this doesn’t apply to me actually”. I will likely say something like "senior dev should know this" and you might be a senior and not know it, it's fine. This is not an appraisal, I'm not your boss, your happiness doesn't depend on me.

And even when I use the labels "junior", "experienced" and "senior" developer, I see zero benefit in assigning you three rigid categories. We're all dumb in our own ways, we're all clever and wise in our own ways.

Let's begin.

Shuhari

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari

Shu-ha-ri (守破離) is a way of viewing mastery of any skill as three stages. Instead of using the more typical western idea of having "experts" who are people who just Know a lot, it instead focuses on how you interact with the skill.

In very simplified terms, it's obeying the rules and respecting the tradition (Shu), then evolving the existing rules by breaking them bit by bit (Ha), and eventually detaching yourself from the usual wisdom and rules and just vibing (Ri).

A simple way to remember the Shuhari stages - follow the rules, break the rules, transcend the rules.

Another way to look at it is mimicking others (Shu), taking a step back and understanding context (Ha) and having a global perspective (Ri).

For example, I've made 1500-2000 pancakes over the past 13 years. I started by following the existing recipe and measures (Shu). I started trying different variations and ingredients from different recommendations (still Shu).

Eventually I started breaking the traditional recipes by adding ingredients that didn't seem expected (Ha) and improvising more.

I'm not confident I'd say I reached the Ri stage, because I still use the same basic ingredients since I have a relatively limited, desired outcome. I'd argue to really be in Ri level of mastery I'd have to have a MacGyver-like flexibility when it comes to ingredients.

At that's fine. Not everyone needs to be a guru.

The important thing is - someone at Ri level of making pancakes isn't just making Shu level pancakes very very fast.

A "Shu" developer repeats what they learned in school, copy pastes from Stack Overflow, follows advice of senior developers, makes simple CRUD REST endpoints.

A "Ha" developer can improve on existing tooling or workflow, remove more complex technical debt and knows when to have exceptions to common rules.

A "Ri" developer is someone who invents workflows, architecture, enterprise patterns, combines tech stack in creative ways, and doesn't necessarily follow hype.

It should be noted that in real world, developers don't have infinite freedom because of practical considerations - audits, legal requirements, ISO certifications, Jira, limitations in your employees' know-how, etc. I can't just develop something in COBOL and then deploy it outside of a Kubernetes cluster just cause it would be a cool way to solve a problem, it needs to fit into the company goals and needs and policies.

This, sadly, also means that a company can restrict your growth in some ways. It doesn't mean you can't grow, but you can't grow in any possible way imaginable. Choose your battles, etc.

Why is this useful?

It might give you a better framework for analyzing your skill set than "junior" "intermediate" "expert". Shuhari isn't about the amount of your knowledge, it's about how you practice your skill and what is your current approach to learning.

And again - being on Shu level doesn't mean your bad / evil / stupid / incompetent / slow / dumb / etc.

Kata

This is not a new or difficult concept. Kata are the unit tests of your skills. The best way to learn is in small pieces. Sometimes all you need to do is write a few lines of code in REPL.

ADHD and others

This is not a medical advice, but keep in mind that you might prefer different learning style than others. Some people like to RTFM. Some want to dive in and try it on their own. You'll have to balance finding and using the style you prefer, but also remembering the limitations of each method. Watching youtube doesn't give you actual experience. Reading the manual doesn't help you remember everything. Trial and error programming won't alert you to potential pitfalls the code will have in edge cases.

The most effective method is, always was, and always will be having a mentor.

Remember to take breaks. Fresh air, clean water, healthy, varied diet, regular movement and exercise. With both diet and exercise, adopt an additive mindset - sure you might be eating a greasy frozen pizza, but if you add some spinach, rucola, tomatoes, peppers on top of it, you're eating _some_ vegetables. If you do only 1 push-up per day, it's infinitely more than 0 pushups.

If blaming or hating yourself for not doing enough would work, it would have worked by now.

Medication might help some. To get diagnosed with ADHD as an adult in Estonia, you must document that it's affecting your life, fulfill the diagnostic criteria, and fork out 250~350 euro for a cognitive assessment. Don't bother with state psychiatrists.

Some over the counter supplements that might or might not help: Vitamin D, Omega-3, Lecithin, Magnesium L-Threonate, Ginkgo Biloba. Caffeine stimulates your brain indiscriminately and might make it harder to concentrate, and also builds up tolerance.

Cynefin

See more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework 

Cynefin (Welsh for 'habitat', pronounced like if you take the name Kevin and make it keh-nev-in... i think) is a framework usually used for crisis management and decision making. However, you can use it to aid your learning, to help make sense of situations like production incidents, or when refining tasks during planning meetings.

One use is to look at the 5 domains and figuring out which of them are you comfortable with, and where is your current task located. The names might not be what they seem at first though. They don't represent how long will a task take.

Let's start from bottom right and then move counter-clockwise.

Like you just found a part of the vast world that calls to you

That you feel deep in your bones that you were meant to be there or know them

That it calls to your soul and you can't shake it

That you just see it or them and you just know

Cynefin (Welsh)

I’m so glad you found a word that resonates with you like that!! That’s so amazing honestly. I’m also so amazed that you were able to keep hira! It’s like our conversation was meant to be haha.

Thank you so much on behalf of Cymry, and I hope you know how much it’s appreciated that you took the time to educate yourself 🥺. So many people don’t even care after being educated on the word.

We have another word “Cynefin” and it means familiar, or a place where you feel welcomed for home. No origin of oppression and anyone can use it. It’s actually a lot closer to the meaning that people *think* hiraeth is now that I think about it.

Anyways, my cynefin is your blog 🥰♥️ I always have your notifications on and I look forward to every post of yours. I feel welcomed here and I enjoy your personality and writings so much.

I could've sworn I replied to this but guess I imagined it— back to you because-

you on your notifs? for me?? that's like.. really a great honor for me thank you for supporting my little blog im hsjdjejd aaaaah 🥺💓💓💓

cynefin sounds beautiful! it deserves to be known just as much as hiraeth hnndhhdsdifks eventually I'll learn to pronounce these properly! and thank you as well for telling me about these things!! there's a sad history to it but how such words persisted feels so wholesome.