The Importance of Fun in the Workplace

An in-depth look at what makes software development a roller coaster where the highs of 0 compiler warnings are quickly cancelled out by the pain of long hours, bad requirements, endless configuration, clueless managers and a plethora of other issues which make death by a thousand cuts seem like a good idea…. They will answer questions such as: “Why is programming often called an art despite having its underpinnings in formal logic?” “How can I rediscover the delight I felt when I first started coding?” “What’s that rush I feel when my test passes? Am I addicted to TDD?” Combining Psychology, Philosophy and Computer Science, Holly will present a series of practical tips to help you rediscover the euphoria that you felt the very first time a metal box in front of you came to life and cried out “Hello World”.

Holly Cummins

Holly Cummins is a Senior Principal Software Engineer on the Red Hat Quarkus team. Before joining Red Hat, Holly was a long time IBMer, in a range of roles from cloud consultant, full-stack javascript developer, WebSphere Liberty devops architect, JVM performance engineer, to innovation leader. Holly led projects for enormous banks, tiny startups, and everything in between. Holly has used the power of cloud to understand climate risks, count fish, help a blind athlete run ultra-marathons in the desert solo, and invent stories (although not at all the same time). Holly is also a Java Champion, author, and regular keynote speaker.