The second lecture

(I actually named this entry “Principles of Software Engineering”, but what I got from yesterday is not only about SE, so I changed.)

So the second lecture has ended for more than 1 day, and almost everyone has blogged about it. Some blogged right away in the lecture as I saw :P. No worries, I think what I learnt from yesterday is what important.

First, idea is cheap. I have read about this in one 3216 senior’s blog before (Jason, if I recall correctly :P). He is the one who agrees that we should not share idea. This is why I was quite happy when Prof interrupted John to ask for our idea about it. In my opinion, execution is what matters. As I heard in the lecture, there was around a hundred companies doing video streaming when Youtube starts. 100, and 1 survives. Execution matters, doesn’t it?

Second, how to work in a team. Personally John’s talk really helps me to realize a lot. I was like “erm…” when saw his slide about when someone’s silent does not mean he agrees or understands. Yes, that’s my case (should improve on this, I know =) ). Besides, being able to deal with conflict (and frustration) are what really useful. Also the third time Prof Ben repeated “programmers and designers doesn’t speak the same language” in the course (in the info session he mentioned this too) reminds me how important it is to listen and understand other’s. It’s like a warning, isn’t it?

Last, I like the talk about potential and intrinsic motivation. And it is fun to see that the phrase “Most people are probably less than 50%” is actually a kind of extrinsic motivation too =).