If you want to advance your career as a developer, you’d be better to learn how to communicate with the non-nerds.
Let’s take a moment and talk about human interaction. For some of us, people are what make the job fun or bearable; knowing that there’s someone you can problem-solve/go to lunch/ share a laugh with. And for some of us, they’re constantly nagging/in the way/slowing us down or just being the poop emoji given life, ya know?
Well, unless you’re working from home, making your own coffee/meals on an island where all your work gets sent off via carrier pigeon, you’re going to have to communicate with someone. And this communication can take many forms, including direction (giving or receiving), collaboration and even <dun, dun, DUN!> fraternization.
Now before anyone feels like we’re saying, “You can’t communicate effectively, you introverted nerd!”. First off, whoooooa, that’s a lot of words we didn’t use. Second, for most of us (nerds included), we can string many words together in our vast vocabulary and articulate our intentions and feelings to varying degrees of success ( I feel the portrait of the socially “stunted” nerd is a crutch and often inaccurate. In my experience, most of my “nerd” friends can’t shut up about anything…).
Think of it as little “check-in” to reflect on how you communicate with people in the workplace. And for those of you honest enough to see you might lack some of these skills, no worries, check out the video and I think you’ll find these steps both easy and effective. Enjoy!
PS – Speaking of communication, stick around til the end of the video where I talk about a “hairy” situation…
Hello, Salute and Hola! Let’s talk about languages, specifically programming languages…
I often get a lot of emails and messages (Yeah, I’m kind of a big deal…lol.), and one of the main questions is what is the best programming language for me to start out with, or what would the perfect programming language be?
Short Answer: There’s no such thing. Pick a language and let’s rock n’ roll. If you’ve seen any of my videos, I’ve broached this subject before and I think, “there’s really no number one language. This is a fantasy, an illusion (WILL saves – BOOM; old school DnD reference.) that beginners would be interested in because at the end of the day, the language that’s going to be number one depends on the type of work you’re going to do, depends on where you live, depends on the type of programming you want to do…”.
Long Answer: “The first step is to learn the fundamentals – Pick a language; pick python, pick JavaScript, pick Java PHP, …pick that language and learn your fundamentals. Once you have your fundamentals, you’re going to have your nerd eyes – you’re going to be able to interpret and see and understand what you’re seeing out there.”
“First rule of programming: You don’t lose if you learn a language…All the modern languages share a lot of the same fundamentals, qualities and characteristics…”. Think of it like this: you’re 10 yrs. old in your parents basement playing super mario bros. on your nintendo ( please don’t sue, nintendo.). Then your older brother or sister enters and pops in super mario 2! At first, you’re a little trepidatious – different levels, different enemies – but after 3o seconds you’re back in saddle as you realize it’s still the same game – jump, jump, beat the boss, / next level: jump, jump, warpzone, / jump, jump, beat the final boss, finish the game, grab a pizza pocket and a soda, go to your room and air guitar to the RUSH album you stole from your brother’s room <the 80’s were a simpler time, yung’unns>.
Of course we’re going to go into more depth in the video <plus another RUBY zing :)>. But know that’s there’s really no one perfect programming language. Get out there, learn your craft, and you’ll always have the tools you need!
A Sneak-Peek At The Upcoming Developer Vlogs In 2019 + So Much More!
First things first: HAPPY 2019, N2N-ers!! …we’re all still here…day 2…
Next up we’re happy to announce some of the cool new gear we’ll be using for our vlogs ( including a 360 camera and some cool videography tools).
Plus, I’m going to be a little more relaxed in the presentation (that’s right you heard me…), “a little more “Stef”, ya know?
We want to focus more on content than pesky little things like video quality that only grizzled old camera operators could pick out.
I’m going to let the vlog do most of the talking but I’m really happy to tell you that we’ve got some big upgrades coming up for the killersites network,
AND you’ll be seeing it in the first couple of months this year. BOOM! Right outta the gate!
There’s so much more, but while reading about it is FUN-damental, let’s take a look at the vlog and engage some more of our senses (for those of you that are still recovering from the last 2 days…maybe put on sunglasses and turn the volume down…). Also, if any of you want feel the cold of Quebec emanating off these pixels, or just wanna see some “BTS Stef”, you can fast forward to 4:25 of this vlog.
PS – Yes, I actually move that fast in the cold and yes, I try to move through most of my tasks like I’m in a “first person shooter”, but the my weapon of choice will always be a coffee.
Enjoy!
…Fair warning: this may get a little depressing but it’s worth it; promise…
Chances are at one point or another you’ve felt the itch. That feeling of wanting a change of [job] scenery, maybe even a new career path. Some of us grab opportunity by the horns and just make that switch, others make a more calculated move that usually involves taking some courses, making some phone calls and waiting for the right time to jump and land on the “terra-firma” of a new career.
Much to the utter amazement of the last group of us who unfortunately feel like there’s no chance; maybe we feel like we’re under-educated, maybe our present job has sucked all the motivation out of us or maybe we’re just scared to fail and fall behind on payments (mortgage,bills,etc.).
I’d imagine the issue becomes especially worse when you’re looking into technology jobs, like a software developer. Our insecurities about our own skill and ability to learn can be almost crippling. We may even ask ourselves what are real benefits of investing myself in this field? Not to mention the time/energy commitment and how much money are we really going to make?
Short (and admittedly somewhat vague) answer: lots of things. But right after job satisfaction, let’s face it: it’s money. How much will do I stand to make? Check out this video and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised…
Also, if you’re wondering how stable a software development job is, check out this page.
The good news is, the more time you invest in learning new skills and competencies, the more money you can charge knowing that you are fully worth that amount <the more you learn, the more you earn>. So get out there and absorb all the knowledge you can. It may take time, it may take more energy than you thought, but it’s worth it and so are you!
Documentation is super important in development. How important, you ask..?
…Very.
[Throw head back and laugh charmingly & disarmingly – then suddenly and intensely] …But seriously it is.
While it’s not the norm, it is becoming more common that programmers don’t leave proper documentation, be it self describing code, comments (little notes that you leave to yourself in your code) or more formal documentation (ex: what type of database structure did you choose and why?).
Granted, sometimes you’re doing something fairly straightforward, like a simple authentication object; it’s not really necessary. But for other projects, you’re only really hurting yourself. When you come back in 3 months or 6 months and you don’t recognize the thought process behind the choices you made, you’re going to double or triple your workload.
Also, it’s just a good professional courtesy from one coder to another. “The worst thing for coders is to have to go into a code base where there’s no documentation, you have no idea what the developers were thinking at the time, and it’s very hard to patch, expand, bug repair; extend a code base where you don’t know the reasoning behind the basic architectural decisions.” Take the time and make everyone’s job much easier and enjoyable…especially yours.
Applies to web design and just about any type of programming too!
A HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL!!
Let’s start off with a scary premise… You’re starting a project or maybe you’re knee deep in the middle of one and you just feel stuck, or trapped. You’ve become mired in details and trying to be a programming hero, and you feel like you’re going in all directions at once! You need a better way to manage your workflow, young padawan…
In this video we lay out 5 steps to speed up your workflow whether a web designer or a programmer you be! Without too many spoilers, I’ll give you a little taste of what I’m talking about with tip number 4: Get the UI in front of the client ASAP. You’d be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t…) how many programmers and designers want to have this almost completed, work of DiVincian (yes that’s a word now) art to show the client. Nope, “You can mock all this up in HTML and you get the feedback from your client as quickly as possible.” Wouldn’t it suck to build something up and then have to change “…core behavior in your application because the client didn’t quite know what they wanted until they saw it?” Check out this video and free up some more time, money, and sanity for yourself.
AI will eventually replace most jobs. But how soon will it replace programmers?
Whether we love or hate our job, we need it for financial support (also, sometimes as a reason to not attend our buddy’s improv show). And in this brave new world all of us have thought at one point or another, what will happen to me if/when automation takes my job? There’s no real easy answer as technology is rapidly evolving, but there are some things we should understand about AI to help us going forward…
“The way to look at AI, is to consider that pattern recognition is easiest for AI. [Therefore] Any jobs that are largely based on finding patterns will be the first to go.”
But how safe are programmers? One would think the very nature of their work would make it ripe for automation… you’d be surprised! In this video we pump the brakes on “Skynet”, and look into how automation will most likely be used in the workplace. No one can argue that the future is upon us, but we believe it’s a little more “human” than you think…
I’ve been using video to send bug reports to my developers for years. That said, I’ve been doing it the hard way with screen casting software, and manual uploads to cloud storage, to share my videos with the developers. With BugReplay, it takes care of all that for you … and it’s super easy!
What is BugReplay?
BugReplay is a browser plugin that makes it easy to record bugs, and send video reports to your developers. It is a huge time saver for web app developers.
Here are some of the highlights:
Browser recorder with developer console logs (JavaScript logs), network traffic
Facilitates communication between devs and non-devs; and between companies and their end-users
Available as a Chrome extension and Firefox add-on- very simply browser extension install and quick setup
Network requests and responses are synced with the screencast
WebSocket data is displayed alongside HTTP requests
All the environmental data is there so you don’t have to ask the basic questions to get the information you need (e.g. what’s your browser, operating system, geographic location, system memory, are cookies enabled, etc, etc)
Unlimited screenshots (and you can add helpful notes to them)
Integrates with Slack, GitHub, JIRA
You can create a shareable URL for the video bug report and share with anyone (they don’t have to have a BugReplay account)
With Feedback By BugReplay, our consumer-facing product, you can also send requests to your customers/end-users, and they can very easily submit video bug reports without creating an account
Unlimited users (we don’t charge per team members)
PHP is probably the best web app development language out there today for a bunch of reason technical, and market oriented. But it’s not the only language out there and it doesn’t have a monopoly of good programming.
Comparing Programming Languages
An important lessons that my 20+ years of programming experience has taught me, is that one of the best ways to learn one programming language, is to learn another! By learning different programming languages, you will start to gain deeper insights about your first programming language.
