How AI will change software engineering – with Martin Fowler

章节 1：职业起源与 ThoughtWorks 的缘起

📝 本节摘要：

在本章中，Martin Fowler 回顾了他“意外”进入软件行业的历程。由于动手能力差但擅长数学与物理，他从电子工程转向了不需要体力的计算机领域。他讲述了早年在咨询公司 Coopers & Lybrand 的经历，那里不仅是他接触 Unix 和面向对象编程（Object-Oriented Thinking）的起点，也让他结识了职业生涯的重要导师 Jim Odell。随后，他分享了加入 ThoughtWorks 的趣闻：最初作为独立顾问去“救火”，因欣赏公司敢于挑战高难度项目的勇气而正式加入，并获得了一个虽然听起来浮夸但他本人并不太在意的头衔——“首席科学家”。

[原文] [Gergely Orosz]: so martin welcome to the podcast well thank you very much for having me i didn't expect to be actually doing it face to face with you that was rather nice

[译文] [Gergely Orosz]: Martin，欢迎来到这个播客。

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 非常感谢邀请我。我没想到这次能和你面对面录制，这真的很不错。

[原文] [Gergely Orosz]: it's all the better this way uh i wanted to start with learning a little bit on how you got into software development which was what 40ish years ago

[译文] [Gergely Orosz]: 面对面确实更好。我想先从你是如何进入软件开发领域这个话题开始，那大概是40年前的事了吧？

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: yeah it was yeah it would have been uh late 70s early 80s yeah i mean like so many things it was kind of accidental really

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 是的，确实是。大概是70年代末80年代初。就像很多事情一样，这其实挺偶然的。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: um at school i was clearly no good at writing because i got lousy marks for anything to do with writing really yeah oh absolutely um but i was quite good at mathematics and that kind of thing and physics so i kind of leaned towards engineering stuff and i was interested in electronics and things cuz the other thing is i'm hopeless with my hands i can't do anything requires strength or physical coordination

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 在学校时，我显然不擅长写作，凡是和写作有关的作业我都拿很低的分数，真的，非常差。但我很擅长数学和物理之类的东西，所以我倾向于工程类方向。我对电子学很感兴趣，因为我在动手方面简直无可救药——任何需要力量或身体协调性的事情我都做不来。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: so all sorts of areas of engineering and building things you know i've tried looking after my car and you know i couldn't get the the rusted nuts off or anything you know it was hopeless so but electronics is okay because that's all very you know it's more than in the brain than you know you need to be able to handle a soldering iron but that was about as much as i needed to do

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 所以对于各种工程和建造类的工作……你知道吗，我试过保养我的车，但我甚至拧不下生锈的螺母，简直没救了。不过电子学还行，因为这更多是脑力活，虽然你需要会用电烙铁，但这大概也就是我需要动手的极限了。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: and then computers and it step easy i don't even need a soldering iron so i kind of drifted into computers in that kind of way and uh that was my route into into software development

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 然后是计算机，这就更简单了，我甚至不需要电烙铁。所以我算是就这样“漂”进了计算机领域，这就是我进入软件开发的路径。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: before i went to university i had a year um at working with the uk at atomic energy authority wow or ukulele as as we call it um and i did some programming in forran 4 and um it seemed like a good thing to be able to do

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 在上大学之前，我在英国原子能管理局（UK Atomic Energy Authority，我们戏称为 Ukulele）工作了一年。我在那里用 Fortran 4 写了一些程序，感觉这似乎是一项不错的技能。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: and then when i finished my degree which was a mix of electronic engineering computer science i looked around and i thought well i could go into traditional engineering jobs which weren't terribly well paid and weren't terribly high status or i could go into computing where it looked like there was a lot more opportunity and so i just drifted into computing

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 当我完成学位后——那是电子工程和计算机科学的混合专业——我环顾四周，心想：我可以去传统的工程岗位，但薪水不高，地位也不高；或者我可以进入计算机行业，看起来那里的机会要多得多。所以我就这样顺势进入了计算机行业。

[原文] [Gergely Orosz]: and and this was before the internet took off this was what what what kind of jobs were there back then that that you could get into what was and what was your first job

[译文] [Gergely Orosz]: 那是在互联网腾飞之前。那时候有什么样的工作机会？你的第一份工作是什么？

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: well my first job was with a consulting company koopers and librand or as i refer to them cheetum and lightum and um we were doing advice on information strategy in the particular group i was with although that wasn't my job

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 我的第一份工作是在一家叫 Coopers & Lybrand（普华永道的前身之一）的咨询公司——我喜欢叫他们 Cheetum and Lightum（一种戏谑的叫法）。我所在的那个小组负责提供信息战略方面的建议，尽管那不是我的具体工作。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: my job was i was one of the few people who knew unix because i'd done unix at college and so i looked after a bunch of workstations that they needed to do to run this weird software that they were running to help them do their strategy work

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 我的工作是……因为我在大学学过 Unix，我是少数几个懂 Unix 的人之一，所以我负责维护一堆工作站。他们需要这些工作站来运行某种奇怪的软件，以辅助他们的战略工作。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: and then i got interested in the what they were doing with their strategy work and kind of drifted into that i look at it back now and think god that was a lot of snake oil involved but hey it was my route into the into the industry and it got me early into the world of object-oriented thinking and that was extremely useful to get into objects in the mid80s

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 然后我对他们的战略工作产生了兴趣，并不知不觉地参与了进去。现在回想起来，我觉得天哪，那时候真的有很多“江湖骗术”（snake oil）在里面。但这毕竟是我进入这个行业的途径，而且它让我很早就接触到了面向对象思维（Object-Oriented Thinking），在80年代中期接触对象技术是非常有用的。

[原文] [Gergely Orosz]: and and how how did you get into like object-oriented was back then back we're talking probably the mid80s that was a very kind of radical thing and you said you were working at a consulting company which didn't seem like the most cutting edge so how does a two plus two get together how did you get to do cutting edge stuff

[译文] [Gergely Orosz]: 那你是怎么接触到面向对象的？毕竟我们说的是80年代中期，那时候这是非常激进的东西。你说你在一家咨询公司工作，这听起来不像是最前沿的地方。所以这是怎么回事？你怎么会有机会做前沿的东西？

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: because this little group was into cutting edge stuff and they had run into this guy who had some interesting ideas some some very good ideas as well as some slightly crazy ideas and he packaged it up with the term object orientation which wasn't really the case but it was it kind of you know it's part of a snake oil as it were

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 因为那个小组确实在搞前沿的东西。他们遇到了一位有些有趣想法的人——有些想法非常好，有些则有点疯狂。他把这些想法包装成“面向对象”（Object Orientation）这个术语，虽然实际上并非完全如此，你知道，这有点像是那种“江湖骗术”的一部分。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: i mean that's a little bit cruel to call it snake oil because he had some very good ideas as well um but that kind of led me into that direction and and of course in time i've found out more about what object orientation was really about and uh that events led to my whole career in in the next 10 or 15 years

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 说那是“江湖骗术”可能有点刻薄，因为他确实也有很好的想法。但这确实引导我走向了那个方向。当然，随着时间的推移，我更深入地了解了真正的面向对象是什么。这些经历为我接下来10到15年的职业生涯奠定了基础。

[原文] [Gergely Orosz]: how did you make your way and eventually end up at thought works and and also you started to write some some books you started to publish on the side how did you go go from like someone who was brand new to the industry and kind of wideeyed and just taking it all in learning things to starting to slowly become someone who was teaching others

[译文] [Gergely Orosz]: 那你是如何发展，并最终加入 ThoughtWorks 的？而且你也开始写书，在业余时间发表文章。你是怎么从一个初入行业、睁大眼睛吸收一切的新人，慢慢变成一个开始教导别人的人的？

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: well here again bundles of accidents right so while i was at that consulting company i met another guy that they had brought in to help them work with this kind of area an american guy um who became the really the biggest mentor and influence upon my early career his name is jim odell

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 嗯，这又是一连串的巧合。在那家咨询公司时，我遇到了他们请来的另一位协助这方面工作的美国人，他叫 Jim Odell，后来成为了对我早期职业生涯影响最大的导师。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: and he had been an early um adopter of information engineering and had worked with in that area and he was he saw the good parts of uh these ideas that these these folks were doing and he was an independent consultant and a teacher and so he spent a lot of his time doing work along those lines

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 他是信息工程（Information Engineering）的早期采用者，在那个领域工作过。他看到了这些人所做理念中的优点。作为一名独立顾问和讲师，他花了很多时间从事这方面的工作。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: i left coopers and librand after about a couple of years to actually join this the crazy company which is called pek um and um i was with them for a couple of years it was a small company there was a grand total of four of us in the uk office and that was the largest office in the company wow kind of thing

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 大概两年后，我离开了 Coopers & Lybrand，加入了一家叫 Pek 的疯狂公司。我在那里待了几年。那是一家很小的公司，英国办事处总共只有四个人，但这已经是公司最大的办事处了，你就知道有多小了。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: um and um so i did i saw a bit of you know having seen a big company's um craziness i then saw a small company's craziness did that for a couple of years and then i was in a position to go independent and i did um helped greatly by jim odell who was um who fed me a lot of work basically

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 所以，在见识了大公司的疯狂之后，我又见识了小公司的疯狂。干了几年后，我有机会独立单干了，我就这么做了。这在很大程度上得到了 Jim Odell 的帮助，他基本上给我介绍了很多工作。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: um and also by some other work i got in the u in the uk and that was great i i remember leaving pek and thinking that's it independence life for me i'm never going to work for a company again famous last words exactly

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 还有一些我在英国接到的其他工作。那段时光很棒。记得离开 Pek 时我想：“就是这样了，我要过独立的生活，我再也不会为任何公司打工了。” ——这真是著名的“最后遗言”（Flag）。

[原文] [Gergely Orosz]: famous last words exactly

[译文] [Gergely Orosz]: 确实是著名的“最后遗言”。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: and um i carried on i did well as an independent consultant um throughout the '90s and during that time i wrote my first books i moved to the united states in 93 um and i was doing very very happily and obviously got the rise of the internet lots of stuff going on in the late 90s it was a it was a good time and i ran into this company called fort works and they were just a client i would just go there and help them out

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 我继续做独立顾问，整个90年代都做得不错。在那期间我写了我的第一批书。1993年我搬到了美国，日子过得很开心。显然，90年代末互联网兴起，发生了很多事情，那是个好时代。也就是在那时，我遇到了 ThoughtWorks 这家公司，当时他们只是我的一个客户，我去那里帮他们解决问题。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: yeah the story gets more i had had met kent beck and worked with kent at chrysler the famous c3 project which is kind of the birth project of extreme programming so i'd worked on that seen extreme programming seen the agile thing so i'd got the object orientation stuff i got the agile stuff and then i came to fort works

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 故事还没完。我当时已经认识了 Kent Beck，并在克莱斯勒那个著名的 C3 项目上和他共事过，那算是极限编程（Extreme Programming）的诞生地。所以我经历过那个项目，见识过极限编程和敏捷（Agile）。当时我已经掌握了面向对象的东西，也掌握了敏捷的东西，然后我来到了 ThoughtWorks。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: and uh they were in tackling a big project a big project for them at the time still sizable about 100 people working on the project so it's a sizable piece of work and it it was clearly going to crash and burn um but i was able to help them um both see what was going on and how to avoid crashing and burning and they figured out how to sort of recover from the from the problem

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 他们当时正在处理一个大项目——对那时的他们来说是个大项目，大概有100人在做，规模不小。但这个项目显然快要崩溃（crash and burn）了。我当时能够帮助他们看清状况，避免彻底崩溃，他们也找到了解决问题并恢复过来的方法。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: um but then invited me to join them and i thought hey you know join a company again maybe for a couple of years they're really nice people they're my favorite client you know i i always thought of it as other clients would say "these are really good ideas but they're really hard to implement." and while thoughtworks would say "these are really good ideas they're really hard to implement but we'll give it a try." and they usually pulled it off

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 然后他们邀请我加入。我想：“嘿，再次加入一家公司，也许就待几年吧。他们人真的很好，是我最喜欢的客户。” 我总是这样比较：其他客户会说“这些主意很好，但实施起来太难了”；而 ThoughtWorks 会说“这些主意很好，虽然实施起来很难，但我们要试一试”。而且他们通常都能做成。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: and so i thought "hey with a client like that i might as well join them for a little while and and see what we can do." that was 25 years ago

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 所以我想，“嘿，既然有这样的客户，我不妨加入他们一阵子，看看我们能做些什么。” ——那是25年前的事了。

[原文] [Gergely Orosz]: yeah and then fast forward today your title has been for i think over a decade chief scientist since i joined that was my title at join since you joined so i have to ask what does a chief scientist at thought works do

[译文] [Gergely Orosz]: 也就是快进到今天。你的头衔我想已经用了十多年了吧——“首席科学家”（Chief Scientist）。

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 是从我加入时开始的，那是我加入时的头衔。

[译文] [Gergely Orosz]: 从加入时就是？那我必须得问问，ThoughtWorks 的首席科学家是做什么的？

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: well it's important to remember i'm chief of nobody and i don't do any science the title was given because that title was used a fair bit around that time for some kind of public facing ideas kind of person if i remember correctly grady buch was chief scientist at rational um at the time actually true and um and there were other people who had that title so it was a it was a high looting very pretentious title but they felt it was necessary

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 嗯，重要的是要记住：我手下没有人（Chief of nobody），我也并不做任何科学研究（don't do any science）。之所以给这个头衔，是因为当时这个头衔常用于那种负责对外输出理念的人。如果我没记错的话，Grady Booch 当时在 Rational 公司也是首席科学家。还有其他人也有这个头衔。这是一个听起来很高大上、很装模作样的头衔，但他们觉得有必要。

[原文] [Martin Fowler]: it was weird because one of the things of thoughtworks at that time was you could choose your own job title anybody could choose whatever job title they like but i didn't get to choose mine i had to take the chief scientist one they didn't like titles like flagpole or battering ram or um or loudmouth which is the one i most prefer

[译文] [Martin Fowler]: 这很奇怪，因为当时 ThoughtWorks 的一个特点是你可以自己选择职位头衔，任何人都可以选自己喜欢的。但我没法选我的，我被迫接受了“首席科学家”这个头衔。他们不喜欢像“旗杆”（Flagpole）、“攻城锤”（Battering Ram）或者“大嘴巴”（Loudmouth）——这其实是我最喜欢的——这类头衔。