I've been wanting to do something like this for like forever. A coloring book for tech enthusiasts. There's been some examples (e.g. the Container Commando) or others but I never managed to be either good enough at drawing or find the time to think about a story that really resonates. With all the discussions around AI and developer productivity and the available tools at hand, it finally happened and I could put together a little story that I hope you enjoy.
Share it, give it to your kids, color it yourself or send it to a friend. This really small book tells the story of Maria. A developer working at a large insurance company and fighting the good fight of approvals and processes most of the day. When her operations team finally teams up with her and they build an integrated developer platform that cuts wait times and approvals in half giving Maria her joy back.
Before you start asking me all kind of questions about this story and the main character, let me try to answer some of them directly in this post:
Why Maria? And why doesn't she look like a developer and are you really sure you want to picture her like this in times like this?
Maria is a second name of one of my daughters. And this particular one also has long hair and loves it. I have no intentions of defining how someone "has to look". Not as a developer or in any other area. My daughters wear what they like, I do the same. Please be you, too. If you want to read more about the struggle in tech, please check out what Holly has to say about this in her blogs titled: "The Sad Case of the Tech T-Shirts" (Part 1 and Part 2).
I am 100% sure the reason Maria looks like this in particular is AI bias. And I am not going to deny that all my tries to change the appearance were somewhat unsuccessful. And I actively decided to keep it and talk about my observations and use this as an opportunity to remind all of us to be careful when working with AI in any capacity. Only models that YOU trained on YOUR data are trustworthy. Or open source ones (like the ones coming with training data, weights and correct licensing).
Why does Maria have a dog and not a cat?
Because said daughter also wants a dog. She wouldn't mind a cat but what she really wants is a dog. And I am unfortunately not able to grant her this wish in real life but I could somehow in this book.
Is setting up an IDP really a thing of a day?
No. And I hope you didn't believe it for a split second. A well thought out integrated developer platform needs more time. Not necessarily less passion as I tried outlining in the story but absolutely more thinking. What is a great start though is to brainstorm and think about the biggest problems in the development process. If it's just one for now, start with this. Maybe it is as simple as making a certain environment type available for self service. Maybe it is more complicated. You can learn more about this by reading my platform engineering and developer portal articles on developers.redhat.com.
Why Parasol? What is this?
Well, I couldn't really call out a real company, could I? Red Hat is using the fictitious insurance company in various demos and examples and I thought it couldn't hurt and also use the name.
Why are you making this available for free?
I don't know. Maybe I didn't know any better. Maybe I missed an opportunity? Maybe I just want people to have some offline downtime? Maybe something else. If you are thankful and love the book, spread the word. Help your local school with equipment. Fight for someone who can't. Thank me on the socials. You can find something that makes a difference today. And I am thankful you asked.
Enough words for today. Thanks for reading.