The Business Aware Developer

By Abigail from Philadelphia.pm, NY.pm, AmsterdamX.pm
Date: Saturday, 15 October 2011 09:00
Duration: 40 minutes
Target audience: Any
Language: English

Developing in a business environment puts some unique requirements
on the developer. While "best programming practises" get a lot of
attention, "business awareness" is often neglected.

In this talk, we'll take some lessons from a large, successful company
(market leader in its field) whose technical platform is driven by Perl,
and look what "business skills" they require from their programmers.

We will see that not everything that is considered "best programming
practise" always makes sense business wise. After all, while many
businesses have an IT department, and many people in the audience
work for an IT development, most businesses make their money selling goods
or services that aren't code. For a business, code usually is a means,
not a goal.