Visitor from VanDyke

We had a guest speaker come to class today and talk to us about software development in a real workplace. This was interesting because I don't really have a clear idea what life will be like working in CS. He described specifically what the environment his developers work in is like, as well as the practices they use. I am not so sure I like the idea of a "bullpen" type environment. I can see why it would be useful for everyone to be in the same room, and able to talk to each other, but since I normally work alone, it seems like it would be very distracting. It sounded like pair programming is not something that VanDyke makes use of. This is kind of surprising, but I guess since everyone is all together it's sort of like pair programming anyways. The main thing I took away from the talk is that "high-bandwidth" communication is important for a development team to work well. This is something that I already knew, and is being reinforced by my experience in this class. Good communication is essential for any kind of team to function well.