Skills, stories, and software every dev should know
By Justin Garrison
issues
Expertise - 123dev #90
Experience != expertise Lots of companies want you to have experience. They require years of experience with X technology, but those years don't translate to expertise.Many companies don't require expertise, but because they're not experts themselves they don…
Networking - 123dev #89
The importance of community Two weeks ago my dad passed out and was brought to the hospital. He had internal bleeding and when I got the message they didn't know what was wrong. All they knew was he had lost a lot of blood.By the time I got to the hospital th…
LARPing - 123dev #88
Culture "The emotional intelligence of management is what makes a company culture miserable or excellent." Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from HomeI read this book last week and it had some really good insights that put words to …
The computer is the network - 123dev #87
Cloud Computing The phrase "the network is the computer" was coined in the 80s at Sun Microsystems to describe that you could use computing resources from other systems to enhance your local needs. The idea had been around before, but the ethos was driving co…
Learning hurdles - 123dev #86
No code walls I've been prototyping a mobile app with no code solutions. It helped me start quickly, but I hit limitations with functionality I needed. I tried multiple options and they all had similar—but different—limits.I finally decided the app was worth …
How does that work? - 123dev #85
Design fossils When you start a new job or contribute to an existing code base you often have to dig to find where to make changes. Every time I do this I start thinking "I wouldn't have done that" or "how does this work?" but it's important to recognize I do…
Uplifting - 123dev #84
Complements When someone gives you a complement to your face, or via chat, or even in pull requests it feels good. If it's a complement aligned with your values it could give you a boost for a long time.If the complement is unexpected or about something you a…
Stretching yourself - 123dev #83
Forming your experience Sometimes we get stretched in multiple directions at once. When this happens we end up flat and shapeless. But when we're pushed to go deeper in a single direction we can stretch a lot further than we ever expected.This probably means …
Eye candy - 123dev #82
Stories I gave an internal talk at work last week about storytelling. I had been stressing about that talk more than any talk I had given recently. The hard part wasn't the lessons or tips about telling stories. The hard part was telling how I learned anyone …
Refreshing - 123dev #81
Focus Our vision can be clouded by too many things. A little trim to get rid of the things you don't need can give you a whole new look. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is saying no to a great opportunity. Having a clear goal is the first step to knowing wh…
Searching for an answer - 123dev #80
Igniting the flame Humans need to rest. Even if you're excited about what you're doing you have to take a break. There's a reason it's called "burn out." You run out of fuel. It doesn't matter if your fuel is excitement, calories, or any other motivation. Whe…
Cubernetes - 123dev #79
Shipping productsShipping products has been very different throughout my career. In my first developer role the products I created were loosely tied to the product the company made (movies). My second role I created services to help developers create the prod…
Career paths - 123dev #78
Gatekeeping People take a path to learn and achieve things. Some people have more things to overcome than others and some learn things more naturally or "unconventionally".For many people it's hard to understand how someone else can learn the same things with…
Structure - 123dev #77
Are you the balloon? Everyone needs some amount of structure. Some people need more than others and it helps them keep their shape. This works until someone throws a bowling ball at you. The more flexibility you have—and the less internal pressure—the more li…
Delayed failure - 123dev #76
Measuring We often measure things in development environments to understand things like how much traffic our application can accept or how many resources it'll use. This is a good practice to get estimations, but the only measurements that matter are the ones…
Reconciliation - 123dev #75
Boundaries I've known people who work 60+ hours a week for as long as I've been in tech. It doesn't matter what company you work for, people will always fail at setting boundaries.Individual contributors failing to set their own boundaries is a problem, but a…
Memories - 123dev #74
From memory My dad loves puzzles. He would do them when I was a kid, but he had a rule I've never heard of before. I'm not sure where or when he created the rule, but he was very strict about it for himself even though he never forced it on us.He would study …
Vacation - 123dev #73
Garbage collection It's weird to think that our brains do garbage collection while we sleep. Reinforcing memories, storing things we don't need, and generally flushing toxins so we can be refreshed and think clearly for another day.But humans have a finite ru…
Conferences - 123dev #72
In person I spent this week with 7,500 other people in a country I've never traveled to. It was amazing and stressful, but overall I'm thankful for the people I met and the conversations I had. Being face to face really does build trust so much faster than an…
Automation is beautiful - 123dev #71
Scripting I think about tools a lot. Tools that will solve my problems. Automation that will help me do something faster. APIs I wish existed. I sometimes write down structure for a database, API objects, and CLI structure I would like to exist.Then I come to…