Cons T Åhs, TweetKeeper of The Code at Klarna

Biography: Cons T Åhs

Cons T Åhs is Keeper of The Code at Klarna in Stockholm, Sweden, which is about managing code quality. With a background of several decades in functional programming (teaching, implementing and using) he is finally seeing the world catching up. After teaching at Uppsala University, he has worked with, among other things, implementing Prolog, low level network programming, music notation, and graphics in more languages than he cares to remember. At Klarna, building highly available and reliable systems in a functional language is about returning to where a life in software development started.

Presentation: TweetChoosing the right technology isn't enough

Track: It's about the people, stupid / Time: Tuesday 13:20 - 14:10 / Location: 2nd Floor Balcony, Musikhuset

In the never ending struggle to reach higher on productivity, quality and predictability during development choosing the right technology, tools and methods are important parts of the equation. This is, however, not enough. These might actually not even be the most important parts of the equation. In the end, it all comes down to who uses the technology and how you put it to good use. For a company the issue is about choosing the people and for the developer about being the right person. At Klarna we use Erlang/otp as one of our major technology choices, but to be productive and successful, we also need to get the right developers to join us.

Messages of the talk/lessons learned
Choosing the right people might actually be more important than choosing the right technology, methods and processes. Quality and productivity, especially in the long run, is about mindset, not technology. Problems encountered when a succesful business grows and how to solve them by selecting the right people. Problems of selecting the right people.