!!Con 2016 - What Developers and Economists Can Learn from Each Other! By Rob Jefferson
Channel: Confreaks
Date: 2016-06-01

What Developers and Economists Can Learn from Each Other! By Rob Jefferson

(Note: This talk was originally scheduled to appear at !!Con 2015.) In the past twenty-ish years, I've had a variety of professional roles: sysadmin, researcher, shipping-container-farm designer, grad student in economics, and most recently developer and devops engineer. One of my favorite things is using what I've learned in one field in others. When I began doing development, there were skills and practices I was learning that would have helped me as an economist (writing good tests, modular software design). Similarly, I learned lessons while studying economics that I've taken with me to development (recognizing endogeneity biases, making technical decisions at the margin, using feedback to automate processes). There are also things that both developers and economists can and should learn, especially about the limitations of their respective toolkits, as well as the importance of working with compassion and empathy. In this talk, I'd like to share some of these lessons, with examples of how the lessons connect with each other.

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