As of this year, I have been programming for 40 years. In 1979, I discovered coding on a TI-57. Since then, a lot has changed. The most significant impact is not what you think!

As I quickly transitioned from calculators (TI-58C) to real computers (TRS-80, Commodore 64, PC), new elements became available:

• Graphics and sounds

• External devices

• Networking (Fidonet anyone?)

One can think that technology spawns new possibilities. However, expectations are the real drivers of innovation!

Developers codify user expectations as the 'Definition of Done.' Here's a partial list for your consideration.

• Available in production.

• Validated and approved by the product owner.

• Fast, automated and repeatable deployments without human intervention.

• Covered by automated tests in the CD pipeline:

  • Static analysis: coding style, language version adherence (ex: ES2016, Java 9), anti-patterns, security

  • 100% unit tests coverage

  • Acceptance tests

  • Performance tests

• Availability monitoring (ex: Pingdom, Cloudwatch)

• Infrastructure capacity planning (ex: Datadog)

• Code flow performance measures (ex: NewRelic)

• Functional transactions and user behavior auditing (ex: Intercom Platform)

Minimum Viable Products are more sophisticated today than before simply because people expect more from us.