Beware of Survivorship Bias!

Track: Practices and other tech

Abstract

Most talks on a typical conference schedule contain success stories of technology. This could lead to survivorship bias. Survivorship bias causes you to draw false conclusions because you mostly heard about successes, but hardly ever about failures. Yet failures provide us with lots of valuable knowledge: when not to apply a certain technique, pattern or process.

So no success stories in this talk! Just some 'silver bullets' we tried to use to solve our problems, but turned out to be Very Bad Ideas™. We’ll share how survivorship bias can easily influence your ideas and cloud your judgement.

After attending this talk you'll be more aware of survivorship bias and what you can do to keep your head cool, no matter how many 'silver bullets' are fired at you.

Hanno Embregts

Hanno Embregts is a Java Developer with a passion for learning, teaching and making music. In his day-to-day job as an IT Consultant at Info Support, Hanno prefers work that is fast-paced and versatile. This is why he juggles Java development, software architecture, public speaking, leading Info Support’s Java Community and teaching courses at Info Support’s Knowledge Centre. Hanno is both a Java Champion and an Oracle ACE Associate. He is also one of the editors of the Dutch Java Magazine. Outside of work Hanno likes making music with his friends. He plays the flute, the guitar and he likes to sing. Software conferences are Hanno’s favourite thing in the world, because they allow him to do the three things he loves most at the same time: learning new things, teaching others about stuff he discovered and yes: even making music from time to time!

Maarten Mulders

Passionate architect, senior developer and trainer; also Java Champion. Passionate about "building the right thing" and "building the thing right". Focusing on lean and elegant solutions. Love to share new ideas and knowledge. Outside work, I appreciate creating and consuming good food, photography, and music, in no particular order.