The Holistic Developer: Recent Episodes
David Michael Ross
Career development, tools, techniques, clever hacks and life hacks for web developers. Bite-sized advice for busy engineers.
I just finished a wonderful meditation session and I want to share my joy with all of you. You know what happened? You won't believe it. You ready? Here's what happened: nothing.
And it was wonderful.
GUIDES
20 Practical Tips for Understanding the Mind
Buddhism for Busy People (chapter 3)
APPS
Headspace
Buddhify
Omvana
Calm (Android)
Calm (iOS)
MUSIC/SOUNDS
Drone Zone
Deep Space One
Ambient Sleeping Pill
Sound Sleeping
Calm
AND IF YOU JUST NEED A POWER NAP
Sleep Cycle Power Nap (iOS)
Sleep as Android (Android)
Culture is a scary word. It's only seven letters long, but it defines so much, the overarching values and artistic endeavors of a society down to the shared beliefs of just a handful of people. Leadership gurus preach the positive impact of a strong corporate culture, and employers reject candidates for having a bad "culture fit".
When I was younger, I bought into the idea of programmer culture hard. Specifically, the hacker culture of the mid 1990s. It was all a bunch of social signaling and ego stroking. And I didn't get a lot of lasting value out of that effort.
Don't just accept the culture you're given. If you're a leader in your organization, use your position to foster a healthy, positive culture among your employees.
We're so used to thinking about an estimate as a number, or a range of numbers, how many hours or days or weeks we think it'll take to do something, how many people we'll need to get it done in a certain amount of time.
It's an artifact, a deliverable.
The estimation process itself is important,too. A good estimate doesn't only communicate how long a task will take but the plan for getting the work done in the allotted time. There are other people who benefit from our estimates, such as project managers.
It may be frustrating to be asked for an estimate when you just want to roll up your sleeves and code, but it puts the entire project on a path toward success.
There's a quote, usually attributed to J.C. Watts but sometimes to C.S. Lewis because that's how it goes with quotes. Someone who may or may not have gone by their first & middle initials once said that "Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking." When nobody is looking over your shoulder, judging you, then everything you do reflects on your values, what you truly value, what matters most to you.
I want you all to take stock of your values.
This week, I recommend some other podcasts on personal growth for developers: 1. Developer Tea 2. Managing Smartly 3. Soft Skills Engineering
Are we pushing new developers into programming languages too fast instead of teaching the fundamentals? Sure, we all loved the first time we saw our computer print"hello world", and we're eager to share that experience. But when I see people asking how they can pass a variable from JavaScript code to PHP, I wonder if we aren't doing people as much of a favor as we think we are.
You veteran developers out there -- you're not off the hook. Now's the time to figure out how your tools are built, how the fundamentals themselves are composed from other fundamentals.
Unsolicited plug: Microsoft's WordFlow keyboard
Programmerculture has a weird relationship with sleep.Sleep deficiency hasbeen linked to heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes, stroke, depression, andobesity. And all those conditions bring their own comorbid effects with them.It also kills our productivity and makes it harder to make good decisions.
Check out Drone Zone from Soma FM, a free, streaming ambient music station. Send them a donation if you appreciate what they do and check out the cool Soma FM swag they offer.
Nobody likes when their boss throws more overhead at them. What I do like are rituals, things teams do together to mark project milestones. Even as individual developers, we have rituals. Isit logical? Heck no. Will it make your code better? I doubt it. But ritualsbreak the monotony of our days, and bring us closer to the people we work with.
Let's talk about one of my guilty pleasures. Let's think about something you don't hear about much in programming circles. Let's talk fashion.
The pace of change in this industry is wild. How do you stay on top of everything? You don't.
Some people love to pigeonhole programmers based on the technologies they use today. What's worse is when we willingly do that to ourselves. We need to push our own boundaries and resist the urge to do the same to others.
Clear written and verbal communication is as important a skill for developers as writing good code. Yet many of us were taught poor writing skills in school and struggle to unlearn those lessons.Links mentioned in this week's episode:* Politics and the English Language * www.plainlanguage.gov * Please Don't Write Well, Write Clearly
Sometimes we get stuck. It happens. And the best thing we can do is step away from our keyboards, clear our minds, and seek new perspectives.
Willpower is like a muscle that needs to rest between exercises, or a gas tank that needs to be filled up between long trips. Modern software developers have tools to automate lots of those tiny choices we make as we code. It's time to embrace the fact we live in the 21st century and let the robots do it.