Is using developer tutorials cheating? Or are they the steps you need to take to move from beginner to advanced developer?
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…and in some cases, it’s also the quickest way to a lawsuit. Beginner devs are often cautious (and quite rightly so) when looking at someone else’s work/tutorial and wonder if making something similar is ‘cheating’?
Generally speaking, “it’s not cheating. Everything that you see in this world, whether it be software development, music, martial arts -whatever, it’s all based on other people’s work.” Some would even argue that’s how things evolve and get better; by different people messing around and riffing on the same idea. BUT, let’s clarify that, “if you’re stealing it; line for line, that’s bad -it’s illegal and it’s immoral. But if you’re learning how to do something…it’s not cheating to do a tutorial and then based off of that tutorial, you build your own app.” Of course, please do your due diligence, for example, “unless they give you specific permission to copy the code, don’t copy the code. But you can basically learn from it, and then write your own thing accordingly.”
At the end of the day your code/project will be different because everybody’s needs are different, so your app, project, etc, will be not be a carbon copy unless you want it to be…in which case lawyer up! But everyone had to start out somewhere and they became experienced by using what they saw and adding their own thing to reflect the needs of their client, employer, or the very project they were creating.
The VLOG goes into greater detail and you should check it out. Go out there and create, learn and be better than you were. -Enjoy!
Becoming a successful developer has much more to do than just code. You need to learn the top 5 foundational life skills:
If you follow the VLOGs or the articles you know that the only thing we love more than foundational skills is ‘top’ lists: top 5, top 10, top 8 – we love ’em!! So when we got to release a ‘top‘ list about foundational skills, you better believe we went to the moon and back, baby! These are life skills – sure, they can make you better at your job, but they also make you a better all around human, and that’s what makes them great.
1. Communication Skills: ” We talk about this in terms of software development, talk about this in terms of business, talk about this in terms of dating! If you know how to talk and you can communicate well and listen well, etc, etc, …great communication skills in something very important.”
2. Tech/Coding Skills: “I believe even if you don’t want to become a coder, you should learn the basics of coding: understanding technology. Because all businesses depend on coding and technology.” For example: “A butcher needs a good website, they need to understand the social media landscape, they need to know what tech is available to help automate and streamline their business -and this is a totally non-tech business.” “…Learning technology and how to code, it may not be as important as reading and writing, but it’s up there…”
3. Financial Skills: I know you may not physically be nodding your head right now but somewhere in the back of your brain, your unconscious mind definitely is. “This is something that will assure your sanity and a less stressful life. If you just learn some basic financial skills -basic saving: #1<save!>, and #2: basic investing- very important. Your life will be so much easier if you just learn to save and invest properly -trust me, it makes a HUGE difference.”
4. Lizard Wizard Skills: “Arguably the most important…psychology/behavioral psychology: understanding how our brains work, how everybody’s brains work -it plays a huge role in terms of all the other skills in your life.” If you have a chance google: ‘lizard brain’ and prepare to be blown away…
5. Business Skills: “How to make money; whether you’re going to work for people, freelancing, or starting your own business…”. Wondering how business skills help if you’re working for someone? “If you can understand how the decision-makers think (if you understand how business works), even as an employee it will help you better navigate within that context. It will help you rise up in the ranks higher (if that’s your goal), it will help you to understand how to negotiate better salaries, etc, etc.”
So there you have it. Check out the VLOG for more of this smiling mug (face), and keep on being a good human! -Enjoy!
Complex development can linger in production, as you work on the last 5% of the job.
So you’ve got your project, your app – mobile or web, etc. ready to go and you’re almost done, “You’ve got the end and use case defined, meaning people can run through your system, you’ve got the UX defined, you got your UI in place…now at this point you’ve got just 5% left -so you figure, ‘we’re going to crack this thing out in a month…or a week depending on the scope of the thing over all- but what you’re going to find is that last 5% lingers…” Oh yes, ladies and gentleman, like a fart left in the back of an airplane bathroom…it lingers.
Light at the End of the Tunnel To get that crucial 5% working from end to end takes longer than you think and that is just par for the course. “[You’ll] find all these little things: this has to be fixed here, that has to be fixed here…this is normal. Keep that in mind when you’re first getting into the game, especially when you’re dealing with clients, and you’re building their system; you’ve got to account for that last bit of back and forth.”
So there it is my weary devs… Check out the VLOG for the some more insight into ‘the forced march of the last 5%’ and just know that it’s normal and to always account for the back and forth between you and the client when you hit that last 5%… -Enjoy!
Heads up! This is going to be geared to our courses (specifically our web development course), but you can definitely take advantage of the information we’ll be providing…but it works best with our courses 🙂
So, when should you start freelancing after taking our developer course? “This is what I’d do: you finished my full stack course, you do all the foundations training, you do the first few projects that I suggest on the project section, and then the thing which you should do at this point is if you got my freelance course, you should read the first few chapters of the freelance course which gives you the framework to setup your freelance business. Then you have to complete your web design training as a padawan web designer or web developer-junior: what you do is you go out there and you do one or two small…SMALL projects as a freelancer for some independent company/third party.” Consider this your final exam cuz you’re going to be out there doing work AND communicating with clients! “…And if you have our freelance course, you’re going to get all the templates, the contracts, the initial proposal templates, etc…”
So there you have it. The VLOG goes into even more detail and you can even hear about how Stef got started out as a freelancer, having no idea how to build a CRUD based application and what he did. Thanks for listening to our shameless promos and if you’ve had your interest peaked by what it is we offer, check out our courses, it’s definitely worth your time. -Enjoy!
Freelancing has MANY upsides, but there is one potential downside to freelancing: loneliness.
For some freelance developers, working alone all is day is hard. As humans we need a little social interaction or a little diversion or it can get real dark for us, real fast. But not to worry, we have some suggestions that will let you get a change of scenery, some human on human stimulation (eww!) and all without sacrificing productivity.
Generally speaking in the office world a seven hour workday can be a little flighty with your attention going here and there and putting out fires in other places, plus meetings and just generally not wanting to be there (which is probably one of the reasons you became a freelancer…). However, one of the things about that office life is you get to interact with people, and enjoy coffee breaks and be around hustle and bustle (atmospheric noise), and feel like you’re a part of the environment, which as a human being is very important (if you have a chance read up on the brain patterns and behaviors of people that have been in solitary confinement…just wow!). We are big believers in the highly productive workday being about 4 hours of solid (uninterrupted) work. When you start with that as your foundation, a lot of options then start to open up. “I make it a point to go out for coffees, go out for brunch, go out for breakfast: I get out! That is the short answer.”
Another idea, “I’ve had people work for me, in fact, they’ll have like their messenger app; their friends and their family – they are in constant communication with them.” That one’s a bit of a slippery slope because it could limit your productivity, but there’s this little tidbit, “You take breaks…once every hour or two you go out, you get a coffee or something; go for a walk -this is good for your exercise as well.” Building on that point, you could go to the gym which is another great opportunity to socialize as well as get that body moving so you feel invigorated when you get back to your work.
The VLOG goes into a great detail providing solid examples of how to break up your day and what activities can help make you feel like a part of the human world again. The main thing to remember is that loneliness can be a factor in this line of work but it doesn’t have to be. We’re sure one of the reasons you became a freelancer was to have that freedom and flexibility that is sorely lacking from the office life…here’s the chance to take advantage of it. -Enjoy!
Spending all your time doing code tutorials, is not going to get you to developer-land quickly. You need to get on with it, and start building real projects!
In life there are two different approaches to situations that people generally take. There are ‘preppers’ and there are ‘doers’…and no doubt you’ve come across this in many parts of your life and you’ve chosen to be one or the other, to varying degrees of success, I’m sure, but let’s talk about prepping vs. doing in the context being a coder, programmer, dev, etc, etc.
Be warned there are shameless promos ahead… Now we want to be clear that there is nothing wrong with a certain amount of prep; no one is saying that you should charge head first into the mouth of the beast(as bad-ass as something like that would figuratively be), without knowing what kind of a beast it is, do I have an appropriate weapon? Is there a healer present if things go bad? Prep like that is perfect for most situations (and a good indicator that I’m playing too much DnD), but too much prep: i.e. – what is the optimal whether pattern to attack the beast? Is it best to attack on an empty stomach? Only serves to bog you down and ensure that you never get out of the gate to slay that beast…
“They get caught up in tutorials…the perpetual tutorial doer rather than the project builder… What you’re going to learn…they only real way that you’re going to get good at software development is to actually build projects.” For example in the courses we offer (there it is), we teach the foundations first and foremost, some ‘projects’ afterwards: one or two or even three and then we teach you to get out there and get some work done because there is no better teacher than cold and indifferent ‘experience’.
“It’s all about the basics, if you have your basics, then everything else becomes ‘easy’; your level of production just shoots up. …If you really want to learn, don’t spend nearly as much time as the preppers spend prepping: just do it.”
Check out the VLOG for a way more detailed talk about prepping vs. doing and if you’re on the fence about it, please check out our foundations course, it’s worth the look, we promise you. -Enjoy!
Whether you’re learning CSS or anything in general: give your mind time to assimilate the lessons.
Learning anything can be hard, but learning CSS (which is not a particularly intuitive system) can be just plain daunting. What do you do when you feel like your brain is getting ‘fried’? Take a break, man!
“Learning something new is very much like exercising: lifting weights/working out. Anybody who does regular exercise knows that the rest period in exercising is just as important as the exercising itself.” For example, let’s say you do some heavy weight-lifting and the next day you’re sore…should you go on that same day and lift some more? Contrary to popular ‘bro’ opinion…NO, you should take that day for your body to rest and relax, so that when you go back to lifting, you’re refreshed and ready.
“The exact same thing applies when you’re learning CSS, …etc. You are literally tasking your brain in a physical way to learn, to acquire, to assimilate new knowledge. And because of that it’s going to reach a certain point where it needs a time to process this and assimilate it properly, so that means that you need to rest; so when you come to a point when you just can’t, it can’t sink in anymore: where the information is just becoming more difficult -your brain seems to be resisting the acquisition of new information (it’s becoming strained!) – at that moment, it’s your brain saying, ‘okay, we’ve trained enough, it’s time to take a break to assimilate.”
Check out the VLOG for a very understanding and meaningful deep dive into this subject. Don’t beat yourself up over how long it’s taking to learn either. That will not matter once you’ve attained your goal, and no one out there in the real world cares how long it took for you to learn something – they just want to take advantage of your knowledge. <Shameless Promo> Our courses, whether it’s the freelancing course or the web stack, or any of them are designed in a way that takes advantage of the fact that you’re learning at your own pace. So no worries, take your time, do it right and be good to yourself. -Enjoy!
We make fun of Ruby a lot here: 1. because it’s fun and 2. … …okay, it’s just fun really, but a question did come up recently from an individual who was offered a job working with Ruby on Rails. They come from a PHP – Laravel background and while they don’t know how to use Ruby, per se, their potential employer also offered to pay them while they learn it. So the question was do they take the job knowing that the use of Ruby on Rails has diminished or should they look for something else?
Now Ruby aside, we’d like to answer this question in general terms if you ever find yourself in a situation like this and you’re on the fence… “If you don’t have other work and the job is high paying, why not? …A language or framework does not define you as a programmer… you [just] happen to be using those tools at that particular time”. Now, specifically regarding Ruby jobs: “…it’s not gonna disappear over night and in fact we’ll probably see Ruby development for the next five years, at least, so …you do that for one year, two years, 3 years; what have you…”
Another question we’ve been getting recently is if Java is dead? With Google making the switch to Kotlin for app development and Oracle charging for Java licensing, what will be happening to Java jobs? “Does that mean the whole Java-Android development is going to collapse overnight? Probably not: it won’t, it’ll probably take a couple of years.” That being said, “if you’re writing code for your android app using Java, you’ll be able to transition into Kotlin very, very quickly.”
Check out the VLOG for a more sensible and detailed answers to these questions, and remember, “you cannot lose learning any programming language.” -Enjoy!
How old can you be and still be a successful freelance coder / developer?
Gonna be a short article and VLOG, it’s mostly just a ‘WOW’ piece. For a quick refresher check out this and that previous article but there’s a man out there who is still a freelancing programmer at 83 years old!!
I mean C’mon! That’s insane! This guy either loves what he does, or owes some serious money. But it really does go to show you that age is just a number and where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Check out the VLOG for the whole story and keep on rockin’ in the free[lance] world! -Enjoy!
<Shameless promo> check out the really cool and thoughtfully put together courses that we offer. Whether it’s freelancing, or learning web development, you’ll be taking advantage of almost 3 decades of experience in all these subjects AND if you click here, you can take advantage of a super deal! We’ve teamed up with InMotion hosting for a really amazing offer where they essentially pay for you to take my course and learn how to become a web developer. Links to all these offers are below as well. -Enjoy!
What is the best developer computer/laptop in 2019? Should you go with MacOSX, Windows 10 …. or perhaps Linux?
It’s 2019 and you’re just getting started as a developer and you want the best gear that will help you get this job done quickly and effectively, so you look into it and maybe you should get a laptop for on the go work? Mac? PC? Or maybe you’ll just decide to get a ‘tower’ setup and just stay home? But what kind of specs do I need? Where am I? Who’s that guy and why’s he smiling? What’s going on, why is the room spinning?
Easy, young warrior, you don’t have to go pedal to the metal when it comes to getting a computer because, “it really doesn’t make a difference anymore in terms of which laptop you get or which type of computer operating system(OS) you get for software development (I wouldn’t use iOS yet for software development or Android…although I imagine that is going to be coming pretty soon…), …all these computers are pretty good: all very powerful, all very capable”.
Not only that but in terms of how much power you need, “You could use a six year old laptop and be able to do most coding with no problem. Where power comes into play…is compiling, if you have to compile…having a faster computer will allow you to compile much more quickly…”.
So there it is, the VLOG will go into a much more deep dive into what Windows 10 is doing vs. Linux vs. iOS, but it’s all pretty much the same. The only real thing you have to consider when possibly buying a new machine is “… think about your broader use case…if you’re a gamer, you’re probably going to want to be on Windows, as an example”. -Enjoy!
