Mind of a developer

- It could be compared to a left brain, right brain, and having worked with both side of the equation, so some people are pure designers, some people are pure coders, I think the biggest issue in between the two worlds is to take the time to learn a little bit about each other, learn a little bit about that the faculties of a designer towards a coder. I mean, the coder doesn't care much about how it looks or very little, versus the designer is all about, "Okay, I want to make it look good. "You make sure that your code supports what I do." And that's where I feel lucky where I can understand both worlds, the challenges of one side, and how it impacts the other. So if people in the designer world and people in the coding environments could learn those challenges, could learn, "Okay, so what are the things that makes your design "not look the same when I actually code it? "Why is that?" or "Why is your design, "how can I make that design happen?" To have those kind of questions in between the two worlds is what will make the final product closer to what both expects. - In this industry, the most important thing is to keep yourself current because technologies change so fast. Like new frameworks come out all the time. New ways of doing things come out all the time, and when you apply for that next job, whatever you already know is already too old, people are already looking for experience with the next framework, and so, learning a little bit more than what you already know is always great. Push yourself a little bit, and it won't be such a difficult chore. It will be fun, and you already know that you know how to do, say, JavaScript, but what if you did JavaScript with something like React? If you know CSS, maybe this next project, you just commit that you're going to learn how to use SAS on this project, and it's not a big push because you already know that technology. It's just like turning it around so that you learn a little bit more, and that's what's going to make you marketable. - And if you are looking into learning a new tool or a new framework, I find that picking one that has really good documentation helps a lot, documentation or some kind of community around it where you can ask for help or find answers, and that's another thing, too, as a developer. You have to get used to reading a lot of documentation. You have to get used to figuring out how to find answers and just being a little bit comfortable with smaller failures along the way. And in celebrating the little wins. So as you're learning, take a little moment to just celebrate when you get something to work, even if it's a small thing. It's like, "Yeah, it works!" So remember how that feels (laughs) the next time something doesn't work. - I think the most important part is to ask yourself, "Why do you want to become a developer?" Some people, they want to become a developer because they know that there's a lot of job out there and they want that security and they want to make sure that they can provide for their family. That's one way to go about it, but some of the people, maybe they think that it is a great way to create something, and then, they are projects in mind that they want to implement. Then you will want to look into what specifically you want to implement and then see what technology people use, and then, learn as you go. Pick up, "Oh, I would really want to know "how to interact with the laser." Well, then, you need to figure out how are you going to program something that can talk to the laser to shoot at the time that you want it to shoot. So that's very different from someone who want to learn programming and build a career and then use that as a stable source of income. Right? In that case, you may want to get a more broad background so that when you interview for jobs, you can answer those interview questions.