First post
01 Jan 2019This is the first post for the first site I built solely for myself, not something I had to do but something I wanted to build for the joy of programming.
Creating a site where I can collect my thoughts has been a project I’ve wanted to pursue for a long time now, since I became a developer in 2014 really.
What stopped me? A mix of things. I believed the code needed to be “just right” before I could start. Should I make a backend? Maybe just Wordpress would do? Hm, Wordpress doesn’t feel “developer” enough? What does it even mean to be “developer enough”? Oh never mind, what language should I use? What design should I use? What’s the best practice way of doing this?
Then there was the list of I-need-to-learns (or re-learns) which seemed to pile up as time went on: CSS grids, CSS full stop, Rails, JS, and oh-dear-lord I’m a Java developer now what do I do?
At a fundamental level what stopped me was fear. Fear I’d be judged if I made any number of what I perceived to be “wrong” technical choices. Fear of building something in the open. Fear that any mistake would confirm how incompetent I felt in my profession. Fear that nothing I said really mattered, a fear closely tied to my discomfort with blogging as a format. Perhaps most, a fear I’d be negatively judged for what I expressed.
So what changed?
I have the privilege of working with a team of developers who support and believe in me. Their quiet and constant messages of “you got this” and “you matter” slowly dispelled the self-doubt. I’ve been inspired by their fearless approach to programming: jumping in, making mistakes, thinking critically, learning, and laughing. Everyday they remind me why software development can be a joy.
I also have the privilege of working with an incredible team lead. His support for open source within the team gave me practice to learn in the open and the confidence to do it on my own. Like my teammates he’s a source of encouragement; the faith he places in me and the kind of developer I want to become makes me believe it’s possible. Reading his weekly reflection has also motivated me to return to writing (check out his Weekly Notes). I love the openness, the self-reflection, and the experiences he shares. I hope to do something similar.
So what’s next?
I’d like this space to be a place where I can recap the things I’ve learned as well as somewhere I can pursue more long form reflections (à la Denise Yu). I have a backlog of musings I’ve been keeping to myself since 2014 (I see you boot camp experience, Google Memo, and “how to be a happy warrior”).
If I can, I’d also like to back fill posts especially from around the time I decided to become a developer. I wrote a few proto-posts in Google Docs before I entered programming and did in fact briefly keep a Wordpress site alive a few years ago. Those posts will be moved over here (if you look at the project commits, I’ve already done that a bit to get a sense of how the site would look). I’m also a decent journal keeper (going back to 1999!) and plan to piece together posts from journal entries and emails.
It should be an interesting ride.