What Makes A Great Developer

I am positive 100% positive that I am somehow going to get ripped in this one okay when I first learned a code I wanted to share everything that I was learning even pretty Elementary stuff like using two for Loops I just felt compelled to try and teach that to someone following in my footsteps being self-taught and all and I got a lot of criticism for it this guy isn't a real developer he's brand new he's not doing it right he doesn't have real world experience and all of that stuff and my response was always well the great developers out there they're not creating any content they aren't teaching somebody's got do it I'm just filling the gaps here and around that time there were many people like there is definitely a word of caution though like if you're brand new you you you may want to avoid trying to teach people the big kind of weakness I think of new developers is that they try to teach something and then when someone asks a question they can't they don't have any way to be able to answer that question and then often because they're not enough of a developer yet they kind of try to like wiggle their way through a question which often gives like a really people can you know people know that you you have no idea what you're saying and then it just makes people instantaneously distrust you you know what I mean counter argument if you're new then you can teach in a more beginner friendly way well you don't know what you're teaching that's the hard part yeah for the love of God just say I don't know yes that is that it's a secret to life just say I don't know um the problem is is you don't know what you're teaching teaching is not easy teaching is a very very very very difficult thing to do and to do it well anyways but I like I mean I like the tenacity I like that this guy got went out and just tried to make something work I never discredit that I think that that's good I like that I like to see it like me new developers on YouTube new developers writing blogs teaching all of the things that they were learning but where were all the great developers I mean if you have so much experience so much Real World experience that can benefit so many people why would you not be teaching it why do you not have your own channel why are you not creating your own courses and helping out there's actually quite a few really great people out there making a lot of really great content uh there's a lot of really great blogs out there so I I don't know if I I I generally agree with the the foundational aru to that there's great developers but they just don't do anything like Casey yeah Casey Casey's a great example handmade hero he's been going wild on that one he's he he makes so much stuff te te does that he's been doing it for like five years now a lot of people been doing really great courses on front and Masters for um for gosh for what like the last decade but there's a lot of great there's a lot of really great uh content creators out there and there was a but there was also the era of blogs blogs were like a big thing and YouTube videos weren't really like a thing a lot of content creators did I think there's definitely the age of of blogs for a long time so I'm not sure if that didn't exist I think that always exists yeah and before that people would write um books right like books were the the original blogs books were the ones that all the experts were writing all these nice things for you to be able to have a nice app pendium of all of somebody's thoughts in one like a really great example is just hackers Delight like look at this look at this thing chapter 2 manipulating rightmost bit some of the formulas in this section find application in later chapters following the formula boom you can like just turn stuff off look at them just turn off the rightmost bit how cool is that just hot dog that rightmost bit like look at this look how good this is look at it anyways so this is like the original blog right these books are so good it just goes through this guy's journey of working on just this crazy Machinery where you had almost no in you had like no instruction set and you had extremely limited memory and you have to do all that I love this book by the way that was a great book the masses by broadcasting all that wisdom that's in your head I mean we were Desperately Seeking that kind of content and as the years have gone by I've found the answers they happen to be one many started programming before the rise of social media in YouTube and they just have no interest in it two they have a books smart mind but they freeze up on camera or they can't communicate well but I think there's a bigger reason one that I want to talk about in this video and before we get to that I have to give a quick shout out to today's sponsor brilliant brilliant.org a great way to learn Math logic and computer sence by the way I have noticed something that brilliant is in like every last ad I've ever seen in my lifetime they they they 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can get started today for free for 30 days by using the link below and the first 200 to sign up using the link we get 20% off an annual subscription that link is brilliant.org Tris media now back to the video why are we watching ads because if I'm watching someone's video and they have an ad in it why would I not watch it okay first off it makes their sponsor very very happy it makes them happy it supports the video why would you not do that okay this is this is free range okay because now a bunch of people are going to go and you know what they're going to use this Travis media go to brilliant.org Travis media to get 15% off or whatever the the the sales pitch was to get a little extra bonus using that that one Travis media now back to the video and as the years have gone by I've found the answers they happen to be One Mini started programming before the rise of social media in YouTube and they just have no interest in it two they have a smart mind but they freeze up on camera camera or they can't communicate well but I think a bigger reason is that they just have other interests interests that we have completely forgotten how to enjoy and here's the thing many of us have made is this a reference to touching grass if that's where this is going I don't know if this is like really appropriate this is a familyfriendly stream I can't be out here touching grass and having hobbies and playing guitar okay it's it's just not possible Ryan link that in a moment it's software devel El our identity it's who we are it's what we work on it's what we breathe it's what we do in our free time we work a Dev job we tweet about coding we create content about code we meet up with our coding buddies we go to coding events we live yeah I mean I guess the big difference you know back in the day is a lot of those people like John carac they would go into the office around 6:00 a.m. or whatever time and then they would leave the office at like say about 5:00 a.m. the next day and so like they didn't obviously go to meetups or or anything else they would just work for 24 hours straight and then crash live it every second of every funny story uh Netflix has sent over an engineer I forgot his name I want to say his name was OE uh they sent over I I want to say it was OE uh they sent over uh someone to help out with like a VR kind of integration with Netflix and it was to go work with John carac and go do that and by the end as the person left over the weekend because they did a whole weekend of of programming he left and as he was leaving he heard the receptionist say which is like John kac's assistant say John I think you broke the Netflix engineer he was in shambles just like stayed up for 48 hours straight trying to program something couldn't handle it John carac still a beast as CTO of of of virtual land just crushing it and just couldn't handle the intensity every day and we're scared to take a couple weeks off because we might lose the skill but the experienced developers have found that they're just so happens to be more life out there they put in their effort at work but they're really looking forward to biking on the weekend or smoking meats or taking trips or playing music in other words they have a life outside of coding they've learned to make a break in what they do and who they are the first corporate Dev job that I took there was a senior developer there and he was really really really skilled a great developer could do anything could explain anything but I could never get him fired up to talk about development he was always talking about his baseball team and the games that he was going going to and the hobbies that he was into and the trips that he had planned and I'm all like what do you think about es6 and all classic Millennial behavior I'm not sure if I really agree with this take and what I mean by that is that I mean there's a certain subset of work in which you don't have to uplevel your skills ever again and you can be really really good at it and you just don't need to keep on doing something but there's also some level of work and certain problems that you have to continuously learn to stay even remotely close to being on top of and so I'm not sure if there's there's a difference here and some people aren't personal enthusiasts about programming some people just aren't they just that's just not them and that's that's like totally cool like I don't think someone has to program after hours if if if you have a job you like the job you can do the job efficiently and you don't want to do anything after hours I don't see why that would be a requirement the only danger of course is that that might be the job you have forever because at some point it becomes as that time as time goes on it can just become harder and harder and harder to find something else because you become more and more and more kind of like siloed niche in some sense like I'm sure if bisco was here he would talk all about the build master of the Synergy language at computers unlimited right probably amazing out you know life but you also just become this like really you know who I'm talking about Jason uh at one point it's like that's like such a such a like such a niche role that you can't really transfer those skills almost anywhere I have a story I'm sure you have a story that's why I should see you when I drive up to Boseman I should stop by and say hi all that stuff and he would be like I don't know I've never even heard of it and since then I've contrasted myself a person who could code all day and talk about it all night to the senior devs and tech leads and managers that I've worked with that could cut off coding completely when needed to pursue other interests in their evenings and weekends and days off they would be at kids baseball games or they'd be excited about a new entertainment system install or powerlifting or reading history books in fact there was a point in time you know there is definitely this problem with men and the Roman in Roman history Roman based history is a uh it's like a real thing it's just it just is I don't know what it is uh when I was when I was in Brazil hanging out with too the CEO globber there was at least eight separate times that we broke down a problem into some reference to Rome from what the Roman soldiers signed on their Shields to All Sorts like to the various battles it was great time where people had nothing else to talk to me about they would see me and they would start this small talk on how's your coding going or people that code could only talk to me about the latest coding technology there was no other life outside of that I either had much to say about coding or little to say about anything else in these days I try not to talk to people outside of work about coding but what's the point in me saying all of this am I going to stop doing this of course not I love this stuff but again there's a lesson to be learned here there's a reason these developers can do this job for 30 to 40 years while you're getting burned out at 5 by way of analogy when you work out and you follow some particular routine there's usually every 6 weeks or so a we I do want to throw out that you know I'm at 19 years I think it probably changes from person to person like if I'm really real I'm probably closer to 17 years cuz those first couple years were filled with me failing out of college and and all those kind of things um I I mean my general big my my general big problem with this is that you're just trading one hobby for another like whatever you like I mean we live in such a world where we get the benefit and the opportunity to even have hobbies which is pretty wild and so we get this amazing ability to do that and so if you like playing guitar you can just talk about playing guitar and play guitar like it's it there's nothing about that that you can't do both you can totally like there's people that just love coding and coding an incredible amount of time but also play guitar like Judo is in here he does judo all the time and used to do guitars a whole bunch shake it up like once a decade yeah I have kind of a general rule of thumb where is like I I will spend like a half decade or a decade doing one activity really really well I did um I did funny story I did a table tennis for about six years really intensely and even played some people that qualified uh two I I was running in the circle of playing with people who qualified to try out for the Olympics that was the level of table tennis I got to I didn't get to try out for the Olympics but I got to play against and be the practice person for people at that level and it was just so much fun like I got I was way too in table tennis okay I had my own paddle I was really into it I had like all the right Right Moves I did handshake hold I did not do pick okay I was not about the pick I was about the handshake and man it was just like I had everything into it and then I just decided to be really into you're like that D with the bowling ball yeah and then I decided that I wanted to do coding instead and then I just moved on to coding and then I just haven't stopped and I've been doing it for like 10 years like outside of work extra time and I've just really enjoyed it and I can't stop liking it because it just it's just something I really want to do so it's like to me it's it's what makes something interesting is somebody who is passionate about something for me I don't really care about the topic we talk about I want to hear somebody who's excited about it like who just wants to be in it and did I ever tried badminton h no I have not like played it at any level but I just want to see like that that's it I'm really passionate about gambling okay I probably don't want to hear about the gambling part of things but you know what I mean it's just like I don't really care if the person only talks about coding or if they only talk about baseball or if they only talk about something like that that doesn't really like affect my my thinking about it I just want to see someone that's excited because it's this weird thing that happens when someone's excited about something I become excited about something and maybe that's because I maybe I have a lot of those little reflector neurons in the brain that make you like reflect the person you're near but it's just when I'm near people that are excited I'm just just all up in it you know what I mean the mirror neurons yeah the little the little the little worm brains I don't know what it is I just get so pumped up it's called being a human I get I'm dude I'm just such a human I am not a lizard I'm like totally a human week that you take off it's called deloading and that gives your body a chance to rest by the way boys don't be deloading just anywhere okay I just want you to know okay it's a real thing careful let's let's back it up while you're getting burned out at 5 by way of analogy when you work out and you follow some particular routine there's usually every 6 weeks or so a week that you take off it's called deloading and that gives your body a chance to rest to recover from weeks of heavy lifting but you know what when you come back that week after to resume that routine you find pull-ups easier and your body more performant because you've given it proper rest likewise if we take 2 weeks off of programming we don't forget it in fact we come back with a much clearer head in a greater passion for it and we know that's true because taking a 20-minute walk around lunchtime usually helps you solve the conundra that you were stuck on that morning so I have three suggestions for you today number one what is something that you I do want I do want to kind of counter I mean I like what the guy's cooking I like I I like the cooking I do think that like for me uh when the weekends start because I have my kiddos like I'm pretty serious about trying to turn off all forms of work and know obviously I Break The Rules every now and then like this last week because I was trying to get some things out I broke those rules and yeah I worked on the weekend but typically I like I don't ever um I don't ever do any form of work or thinking as much as I can on the weekends and try to just maximize my time with my kids and my wife uh also when I'm done working after usually right around like 10 hours of trying to do something I try to go over and just be with my kids uh and just try to not think about programming and so it's not that I am how do I say this when I'm doing a thing I try to do the thing does that make sense a a lot of times people try to do something but they do it so half ass they're they're they're doing it but then they go on Twitter and they they tweet for a little bit then they go back and then they watch a YouTube video then they have like a podcast playing on the side so they're working for like 20 minutes and then they look over and they're kind of locked in then to the podcast for a little while and then they go back in they kind of lock in here and they're kind of like you know you're kind of just like consuming at all angles and all different things where it's just like I don't want to do that like a lot of times when I'm trying to do something I really try to do the thing and so there's like times where I try to break that off right there's like simple work where I can kind of have something playing in the on the side which I like to do every now and then but when I'm trying to do something I try to do that one thing really well and so when I'm with my kids I try not to get distracted and just try to do the whole ass time with my kids and then when I'm doing work I'm trying to do the whole ass thing when I'm doing work and then when I'm like okay now I'm kind of just in this this kind of investigation phase I'm kind of just doing this or that then I kind of let myself relax and maybe I have a podcast playing or watch like TJ say something stupid and say a bunch of stupid stuff while I'm just kind of doing some basic research right you know I try to I try to go through all the different ones but I don't know so what what I'm trying to say here with this is that I don't think that burnout he says this is why you get burnt out at 5 years I do not believe burnout has any correlation with ours uh doing something I do not believe there's any anything I do not think if this was if this was a percentage chance of burnout and this is time in a week spending doing something I do not believe this curve exists I do not believe this curve exists I don't believe this curve exists I don't believe any of those curves exist because I think what it should be is time spent doing something that you like that you that you greatly dislike time spent doing something that's excessively unrewarding and what I mean by that is that if you liked playing basketball and you practiced for a bit of that time then you played games and then you went back and did practice and then you watched film about it you probably wouldn't get burnt out but if all you ever did was just shoot free throws and nothing but free throws you would get burnt out it would just become such a chore because there's no reward to the to to it at all there's no there's no like there's no ending to it that makes you something good free throws free throws you know what a free throw is right free throw looks something like like this right you have your you have your key right here that's definitely a dick I definitely just drew a dick um I did not mean to draw draw a dick uh but this was supposed to be a 3D model of a basketball hoop and which I thought was a pretty good basketball hoop but that is definitely a dick here I'm going to try to undi that one there we go we just unded it now we still a dick um all right uh so you stand like right here right and you and you shoot you shoot a a basket you just practice that okay that's what a that's what it is okay you got to lean in okay if you've already if you've already actually Drew deck you just go for it okay is this still a family stream yes how do you think families are created um anyway so I for me it's not about hours worked I think hours worked and percentage of burnout have nothing to do with each other I think it has everything to do with the thing you're doing and being able to derive uh like satisfaction and results from it now obviously I think that that there is a there is a point where that breaks down I think we can all say that there's an edge condition that breaks down where maybe if that time is like 90 hours a week every week and even if you enjoy it maybe then you can actually correlate some level of burnout that does exist right just because you're not getting good sleep you're not taking good care of yourself you're not having all of these other things going on in life to be successful which is totally reasonable then because you're not taking care of your body which if you don't take care of your body you don't take care of your soul you feel horrible right hylomorphic we're two in one people you're more than just a meatbag okay so you can't just discredit your meatbag because your brain goes to you can't just only focus on your brain and not focus on your body you feel horrible if you only focus on your body and never focus on your brain you're just one of those big dumb guys walking around getting angry all the time injecting that Trend in you or whatever the hell these testosterone stimulants are and you get all freaked out got veins popping everywhere you don't want to be either of those two things take care of your body take care of your mind skill issue time management classic you love to do all right Let's do let's do uh three takeaways let's go number one what is something that you love to do previously but have since stopped doing maybe you used to take your Trek mountain bike and hit the single track every weekend or on random evenings then you had kids kids and you sold it sounds like my story but now you actually yeah that's what happened to me I have kids okay you're not I'm not allowed to go do some 4-Hour activity okay I got children I got to hang out with the children okay limited time they have time for it if you stop coding for a bit and get back into it think about those things that you used to do things that excited you and rekindle that again number two if you find that your mind is always on coding then you either need to start reading books or you need to start reading wider CS Lewis once said to make a contrast with someone who is not a reader we realize it best when we talk to an unliterary friend he may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny World in it we should be suffocated the man who is content to be only himself and therefore l a self is in prison do you inhabit a tiny little world of coding only we actually just started this damn coming out with that CS Lewis talk she I think that that might be a slight stretch on what CS Lewis was s stating there I think what CS Lewis was stating is a is a man who does no type of reading uh someone who only exhibits a world to please themselves right there's another there's another phrase that goes on that's like a man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package indeed I forget who said that but I've heard that once and so it's like a uh if all you do is exist to please yourself then yes you created a very small and suffocating world but the thing is is I I I don't agree with the takeway but I love the CS Lewis quote I think you should be trying to grow and become smarter and you can pick something to become very vertical at and that's good CS Lewis was the inventor of computer science that's why his name CS okay uh was it Chesterton probably that sounds like a very Chesterton uh phrase I mean I like what he has to say like I do think that there is limits which is that if all you ever code and all you ever think about is one small area I think that you often find yourself becoming that person you never actually explore outside of it I do think there's a lot to that that is really really good which is you should explore Concepts and things that are vastly outside of what you're comfortable with so that you expand your area what's the quote about old men planting trees what about that fence this new book in the impostor devs Community called The Joy of x a guided tour of math from one to Infinity to try and rekindle that love for Math and not necessarily for programming but just in general as many of us haven't considered these Concepts since high school and number three to become an even better programmer you need time off you need time away from it on a regular basis if you work for a company then you should be maxing out your PTO and if you have unlimited PTO then just quit going to work just kidding that time off will as strange as it sounds make you a much better programmer and a more fun person to talk to overall if you found this video helpful I'm not going to lie to you uh when I had time off you know what I did programmed baby okay you get judged for taking time off not always it depends on the job build my own stuff though yeah hell yeah I did some coding baby anyways I actually really did like this video These are good things to remember you know I used to love playing guitar I played a lot of guitar played a whole bunch of guitar and it's something that I really really enjoyed and I do think there is something very very valuable about having something in which you can express yourself in it's also the reason why I don't think that you should just not code in your free time if you like it and and you're building something that's really challenging that's something that gives you energy it it feels like this is the thing that you kind of like it are expressing like coming up with like new ways of doing things like you're really exploring kind of the bounds of your mind and what you're doing I think that equally counts like that's that and so but for me also like guitar was like something else that explores that exact same thing where I can just make up stuff and then I enjoy it and then I can kind of keep on thinking of that it's just like this really you know it's like a really nice kind of process and so I do think that that whatever that is for you you should try to do and I think that that's really really important like the thing that makes you kind of like expand a bit I also do think that if you don't make time for reading you should make some time for reading I try to read a couple books a year um you know I think that that's really good I think that's just really good for you read things that are far outside of your topic just so you have some other thing you can talk about you know play guitar now no hentai does not count kids it's a fact of life judo's spot on hentai in fact does not count no matter how much you want to make it count it does not count I'd rather have you read me some articles well that's why I read articles and we watch these YouTube videos is because I think I'm I think I'm a pretty shoty reader I will say that my reading skills have gotten so much better and the amount of Dyslexia that I can now overcome is growing it's growing wildly and so I I can just feel it I can feel now what I'm having intense dyslexia moments and I just have to slow down and really think and focus and it just kind of goes away it's crazy anyways reading out loud really helped me hey kids reading out loud it helps me it can help you too A Jen also this is a great video I really like the video thank you very much Travis media this was good I'm going to subscribe to you I'm going to give you a thumbs up really appreciated that that was a that was a good video I know some people thought I was disagreeing hard with the guy I like to think about things and kind of Bounce the thoughts off to kind of really you know I like that it's a good time and plus the CS Lewis quote was fantastic great thing to think about

Channel: ThePrimeTime

Views: 155,587

Keywords: programming, software engineer, software engineering, developer, web design, web development, programmer humor

Id: ZCsDnC7UBkI

Length: 27min 12sec (1632 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2024