Mac Slocum: So Ben, how is programming a social activity?
Ben Collins-Sussman: Programming is,
it's something we think about as,
as sort of an individual activity.
You sit in front of a screen.
You type a lot of code.
But one of the things that Fitz and I have been talking about
for a few years now is that we think of it as a team sport.
And in fact, it's, if you want to be a successful programmer,
it helps to have that attitude in mind and think about working with other people.
Do you want to expound on that a little bit?
Brian Fitzpatrick: I mean you, you'll sit down and write code often by yourself
but there's hard, there's hardly any software projects out there
that are just written by one person.
So you gotta work with other people and get to talk to them,
determine who's writing what, who's doing what.
Despite the fact that people won't admit it,
communication is a huge part of that
and if you don't know how to communicate well
and communicate efficiently with your team members,
you wind up duplicating effort.
Or you know, you can lock yourself in your private little office
and write code for two days.
But if it's the wrong code, it doesn't matter.
Working with other people,
you really want to get a tight feedback loop.
So write something.
Get someone in to review it.
Talk to them about it, etc. and you sort of repeat that.
The same way that you, you compile code as you're writing it.
It's a tight feedback loop.
Ben Collins-Sussman: And so one of the things we're actually talking about,
what we've been focused on,
if programming is a team sport,
and you're going to be working with other people,
what is the best way to build a culture within your team
that facilitates communication?
And that culture is a really important part of how you write the code.
It affects everything you do and how efficient you are.
Mac Slocum: So what is mass organizational manipulation?
Brian Fitzpatrick: It's my speciality.
So organizational manipulation is what I talk about as the way of,
it's a way of navigating a complex organizational structure, okay?
You look at any company.
Whether, any company that has more than one person in it.
And the org chart doesn't necessarily match the way the power flows
in the organization.
And it doesn't necessarily match how you go about getting things done.
If you need to get software shipped
or you need to get something signed off on or just make things happen.
So I jokingly refer to that as,
as a way of working through any organization to get things done.
Having worked at Google for oh, six years now,
it's grown just a little bit since then, in that time.
Ben Collins-Sussman: Putting in my two cents in watching you.
It helps, I think, to become friends with executive assistants.
They have a lot more power than people realize.
That's my pro tip.
Mac Slocum: That is, is that the key?
Be friendly with executive assistants?
Ben Collins-Sussman: I just think that's one example
of where the org chart doesn't necessarily match the power chart
the way of getting things done.
That's one particular example.
Mac Slocum: I see. Okay.
Brian Fitzpatrick: That is one example.
And beyond that it's just sort of knowing what to do
and knowing when to ask permission
and when to do what you think is right.
And it helps if you're in a company where it's okay to do what's right
and then ask, beg, you talk about begging for forgiveness,
not asking for permission.
Mac Slocum: Sure.
Brian Fitzpatrick: And I think it's a very efficient way of getting your work done
but I will point out that sometimes begging for forgiveness
involves like skinning up your knees as you're groveling across the parking lot.
All right.
Even if, and I've done it but it was worth it.
Totally worth it.
Mac Slocum: So, Fitz, I have another question for you.
What impact have you seen from Google's Data Liberation Front?
Brian Fitzpatrick: Well, you know, gosh if you asked me that a month ago,
I would have been like,
'I think I've seen some impact in the tech world.'
It wasn't until we launched Takeout, Google Takeout last month that,
that the impact just,
it increased by I would say orders of magnitude.
There's two, there's a couple of different sizes of the impact.
One is within the company.
And whenever we talk to people we always get basically enthusiastic
response from people.
'This is a great idea.
Let's do this.
And how can we make it go better?'
And then after we initially launched in 2009,
the people we spoke to were all 'This is a fabulous idea.'
It's a way of explaining how we intend to compete
and how we intend to keep users by innovation
as opposed to building bigger locks.
But we never really get, I say, a big hit in the consumer side of things.
But since we launched Takeout, I think people suddenly see,
'Hey. This is, this is a really innovative way of doing this.
You can pull a bunch of your products in at once and download them.'
And we're adding products as time goes on.
But I think people realize that hey, this is a real,
this is a real stance, a real commitment to data liberation sort of philosophy.
And it, I won't be happy until consumers are demanding it from Google,
from other companies before they start putting their data into a product.
Mac Slocum: Right.
So last question and Ben, this one's for you.
There's no segue between that and this one but it's relevant to the session,
one of the sessions you had I was interested in.
How do you see these mobile devices shaping interactive fiction?
Ben Fitzpatrick: Interactive fiction is one of those interesting hobbies.
I suppose in the 1980's it was a really big form of gaming.
Most people think it died in the 1980's
and in fact, it really just went underground to sort of an indie developer community
and it's gone on very strong especially in the last 10 years.
And just in terms of the state of the technology,
the state of the art.
It's just been known only to a small group of sort of independent,
independent community.
And what makes me excited about mobile devices,
is that I feel the stage is being set to bring this medium
back into the mainstream.
Everyone's got a little tiny computer in their pocket now.
Right?
Before when we just had laptops or big computers on our desk,
why would we want to play a game that was essentially all text?
Right?
I mean, you've got giant screens and giant graphics.
What a waste. Right?
But now you've got small computers in your pocket which,
there's sort of a renaissance in small, simple games.
People are rediscovering them,
all the madness over how many games can you get from the app store. Right?
None of them sophisticated, typically, is what you get on a big machine.
But smaller games are getting very popular.
And even retro's becoming cool in some ways.
And then combine that with the movement of
the general movement of the industry towards electronic books, right?
Everyone's reading books on their phones, on their e-readers.
And so if, if you pose interactive fiction,
it's what a lot of us are thinking, that you can mix the two together.
You say, 'Look. This is, this is fiction.
You read your book on your e-book reader.
Here's a different kind of book that's interactive.
It's a real piece of fiction.
And it's kind of like a game too.
We know you love to play games on your phone
so here's this perfect thing to do while you're sitting on the subway.'
Right?
I think we're gonna bring it back into the consciousness of the mainstream.
That's my hope and some of the other folks I work with,
Mac Slocum: All right then.
Thanks so much for doing this, guys. I appreciate it. 00:06:52.100,00:00:00.000