Keynote: This is Water
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How's the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?“
David Foster Wallace, from This is Water
A fish is swimming along, having some breakfast, when suddenly he's snatched out of his world by his food, abruptly ejected into a bright world where it's hard to breathe, landing on the bottom of a boat, where strange alien creatures make strange sounds. Overhead, he sees an airplane flying at 500 mph. Suddenly, one of the creatures picks him up, removes the hook, and, just as suddenly, he's back home. Yet, when he regales his friends with this tale, no one can believe such a strange world could exist.
This keynote describes the water you swim in but cannot see anymore, like relational databases and application servers. And, it jerks you out of this water (briefly) to describe a strange, fantastical world with things like immutable database servers and phoenix machines. You may have trouble getting your friends who didn't attend to understand.
About Neal Ford
Neal is Director, Software Architect, and Meme Wrangler at ThoughtWorks, a global IT consultancy with an exclusive focus on end-to-end software development and delivery.
Before joining ThoughtWorks, Neal was the Chief Technology Officer at The DSW Group, Ltd., a nationally recognized training and development firm. Neal has a degree in Computer Science from Georgia State University specializing in languages and compilers and a minor in mathematics specializing in statistical analysis.
He is also the designer and developer of applications, instructional materials, magazine articles, video presentations, and author of 6 books, including the most recent The Productive Programmer. His language proficiencies include Java, C#/.NET, Ruby, Groovy, functional languages, Scheme, Object Pascal, C++, and C. His primary consulting focus is the design and construction of large-scale enterprise applications. Neal has taught on-site classes nationally and internationally to all phases of the military and to many Fortune 500 companies. He is also an internationally acclaimed speaker, having spoken at over 100 developer conferences worldwide, delivering more than 600 talks. If you have an insatiable curiosity about Neal, visit his web site at http://www.nealford.com. He welcomes feedback and can be reached at nford@thoughtworks.com.