Why?
For the longest time, I've been feeling the need to jot down some notes about my daily life as a programmer, more as a therapeutical process than anything else. I find it to be a great way of decluttering and tidying up my mind.
These notes have no didactic intent and may or may not follow a coherent structure. I might just write down a list of things I did one day or elaborate more on a specific point another.
I used to often read .plan files that programmers would write and share in the '90s and early 2000s and always found them interesting, useful and entertaining (for more info, see Wikipedia and John Carmack's Archive .plan to get an idea of what I'm talking about).
I thought that, as I was going to write anyway, I might as well share it with others. If one person finds use in it, that's great. If nobody does, that's fine too as it still helps me.
Thoughts
I've been a programmer professionally for little over two years now, working in a very small operation and basically being the only developer in the team.
I started using the usual JavaScript stack and then gradually expanded to handling the Cloud Infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines. I never had anyone holding my hand with anything and pretty much had to teach myself every single thing. It was me and the Internet working together.
I've learned a lot, although I have the constant feeling I haven't learned enough, and no matter how much more I learn, the feeling never goes away, it only gets stronger.
Situation
Different signs and events have convinced me it's time to plan and structure my learning more effectively and with an actual, sort-of-detailed short-, medium- and long-term plan to maximise the time available.
Project-based learning is always best; however, I'm already getting that from my daily role, which consists in building solutions from scratch, in addition to an operations and monitoring side of things. So I've decided to focus on
- Obtaining a few useful certifications that will actually expand my knowledge and skill base
- Short exercises to sharpen my language-based skills (e.g., JavaScript, TypeScript, Bash etc.)
- Seeking and providing mentorship
I will expand more on each point in following posts.
I ask you reader, what would you like to know from someone who works full time as a developer? What could I talk about that would help you or interest you?
Top comments (0)