If you have ever written a line of code, you are a developer – it’s that simple. It doesn’t matter if you sold it. It doesn’t matter if you packaged it. It doesn’t matter if you promote it on twitter. It doesn’t matter if showed it. All that matters is that you wrote that line of code, you ran it, and it did something. If it shows “Hello World” on your screen, then congratulations you…
You only think you are. I wrote this a few weeks ago on the ItsYourTurnBlog. If everyone was moving ahead and there was no pandemic and you decided to take three months, six months, a year off, you wouldn’t feel like you were behind. Because it was your choice. This time it isn’t. Still no reason to feel like you’re behind.
Your code. Your team. How you lead. What project you are working on. What you are learning. Everything, it all breaks at some point. Good. That’s the point, if it doesn’t break, you’re not learning, you’re going through tutorials and motions where everything is isolated and perfect. It’s messy, all of it, it’s supposed to be messy, that’s the point. Break it, make a mess, fix it and grow.
How will we get through this sprint? How will I finish this class? How will we ship to the customer? How will we get it done? How will we get the service uploaded? How will we launch the new site? It all starts with one task, accompanied by a number of other tasks, but in the end one task is where it starts. Focus there, on one task and move from there.
Will it be on LinkedIn? Twitter or Facebook? The algorithms have changed and the content that is sent to you has as well. This isn’t a conspiracy, this is a fact, things change, code gets optimized, what you think is the right way to do something, might not be what the actual owner of the company thinks is the best way to do it. You might both be wrong. If it’s getting harder and harder…