Dear Developers,
I want to take you on a quick voyage into the past so we can talk about your future as a Cloud Foundry Certified Developer — a certification that will define the future of cloud-native development.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the magnitude of technological advancements we’ve made in the last thirty years. I imagine this is something you think about often, as this is your industrial revolution. You’re the impetus for this transformation. You’ve enabled it with your vision, your expertise, your artistry. When I think about the digital revolution, I see all of you, the people who crafted this seismic shift with your language skills, your unique lines of code, your drive to innovate and iterate.
This transformation is in the palm of your hands.
Consider the major disruptions of industry in America’s short history — like the tycoons who imagined a gleaming railroad that stretched across this vast country, enabling rapid transit and expediting trade routes. Those folks had grand ideas — but the actual outcome was created by thousands of people: the designers, the engineers, the workers. The transcontinental railroad was not built overnight. Leap across the Atlantic to the cathedrals throughout Europe. Again, there were patrons who envisioned these monuments, but it was the architect, the construction workers, the artists who built these opulent structures that have endured hundreds of years.
In my mind, you are the creators of our digital future. You are the engineers, the designers, the artists. Every single one of you holds the power to change your organizations, communities and industries with your indispensable knowledge and your distinctive approach to code. Jump forward into our century where many consider the smartphone the major disruptor of a generation. What makes it indispensable? The applications.
The smartphone is transformative because of the applications that run on it.
You have changed the world by creating applications for the smartphone we didn’t know we would need, let alone rely on. While Steve Jobs may have had the inspiration for the iPhone, it is your collective vision and talent that have made it the essential it is today.
It is this spirit of collaboration and artistry that keeps me coming back to open source. In our community, we understand that each developer is an individual with an approach as different as Mozart’s from Lady Gaga’s. We know that developers aren’t interchangeable. In a recent qualitative study titled What Developers Really Want conducted in collaboration with ClearPath Strategies, we found the majority of enterprise developers crave both freedom and creativity — and that you’ll do what you can to afford yourselves those opportunities. The developers in our focus groups told us they want to focus on solving interesting problems, not on the mundane processes that often rise up between the initial excitement of a project and its deployment. We understand this deeply — which is part of the reason developers created Cloud Foundry in the first place.
When you want to get to the interesting part, you want faster tools. In fact, 88 percent of the developers we talked to told us that faster tools were important to them — and 40 percent called them “very important.” Faster tools can sometimes mean certain constraints on your process — but ultimately, these enable greater creativity (and freedom, down the line) as they streamline processes you would rather not spend time on.
Cloud Application Platforms expedite the overall process, giving you what you most want – the freedom to create.
Cloud Foundry makes it easier to increase velocity and innovate faster. It also gives back your valuable time so you can spend more time doing what you love – being creative and solving problems. So what are you waiting for? Let’s get you trained and certified as a Cloud Foundry Certified Developer.
Look for Part 2 of my letter next week.
— Abby
