I was going to write an ALT.NET recap article but I think James and Donald really said everything I would have said. Instead I thought I would write about what changed since I got back.

One of the things I came back with from the ALT.NET conference was a lot of renewed energy in that the way I am trying to develop software is the way a lot of talented industry people are developing software. Now not to say that I want to follow what person xy does dogmatically, I want to combine ideas and techniques into what works for me and my client organizations.

A lot of discussions were around our favorite person.... Mort. For those of you that have never heard of Mort he/she is a developer that makes a quick solution to a problem and learns as they go (I am really paraphrasing here for more info check out the Microsoft Personas). Now I must say I hate the term as it used in a derogatory fashion. We all have developers at our shops that do not spend their time reading blogs, reading books, and tinkering with new (or old) ideas and we have to accept the fact that they will always be there. We also need to accept the fact that just because they are not up on all the latest techniques and tools that they still put out good code (well, depending on the quality of the programmer but an Elvis or Einstein is just as capable of outputting garbage code).

One of the common things with the personalities though is that they all learn things. There is no personality type that will fight learning. It is how they learn new things that varies.

One of the things I have resigned myself to is just accepting that I will learn new things ahead of the curve. Others will wait until either MS includes it as a practice / toolset or the organization forces it upon them. How depressing and untrue! Since coming back I have found myself talking with colleagues about a lot of things debated there which has started some good conversations and energy. I have also noticed that me constantly blabbing about x or y and code camp coming up has seemingly built a lot of energy here to want to attend and find out what alt.net is all about or find out what nHibernate does.

I was about to start a really simple task today of creating and retrieving a translation table from our database today. No one here does TDD and I am a one man show on this project (why 7 people come to our project meetings I may never know) so there is not much in the way of pairing. Just before I started I went and grabbed two developers and invited them to come sit down with me and test drive our development down to the data layer. For some reason I was surprised that they said yes and happily sat down for the short time it took to build this out. They asked a lot of good questions about what to test and how to do it so was great to see the gears turning.

The thing I am realizing is that it is not other developers that are the problem. Its that myself and I think a lot of other people that think that no one will listen so we bite our tongues and just do things our way. Granted, not everyone will listen or like what you say and that's fine! Agile does not work for everyone, UML is not the only modeling language, and drag and drop apps can be successful (I have not heard of one, but I am sure it can and has be done). It's all about making people informed of different ways to do things and let them choose!

So start talking, sharing, and asking questions! Have lunch and learns. Talk about a problem you have at coffee/lunch. Grab other developers and just show them something that might help them. If they have a pain point in their application give them some advice or sit with them for 10 minutes and show them different ways to do things!