For me, this was 2016’s highlight of the Sydney technologists user group circuit.

Last week I was lucky enough to go along with my Readify colleagues to see Martin Fowler present on Microservices, Event Sourcing and Infrastructure as Code.

“Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.”

It’s his expertise, emotion and passion that brings a certain gravity to his technology conversation.

He traverses commonly discussed topics in a very unique way. He starts by looking at the human, social, and scientific consequences of technology choices, design patterns and agile practices.

Listening to him talk reminded me that working in technology is quite a privilege. The significance of our practice is profound.

He’s the sort of technologist who writes clean code not because he’s an precision artist. Instead, Martin Fowler writes clean code because he is a main stream hacktivist thoughtworker.

I’ve been following his writing now for nearly 20 years. When I heard he was coming to Sydney I was a little star struck. I wasn’t going to miss out on seeing him present.

His tip for the industry was…

“If you want to make the most of the cloud then get into infrastructure as code. Automating your pipeline is going to pay off big. For your clients. For you.”

I wasn’t disappointed. If you get the chance, go and see him!