What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Becoming a Developer

NYCDA Philly

Lisa Yoder • @_lisli

A few words of wisdom, most of which you're probably starting to grasp already...

It's Not Magic

Ok, it's kind of magic. But really it's just a bunch of things written in text files. Not so scary, right? It's not like a hacker movie.

You don't need to understand everything to get started

This was a major hurdle for me to get over. I should have started learning so much sooner, but I couldn't figure out how the browser knew what to do with all those text files. Turns out, it doesn't matter at first. It's good to learn about those things as you go, but don't let them stop you from getting started.

You'll feel stupid 95% of the time, and like a total genius the other 5%

You'll wrestle with a problem for days, then feel amazing about yourself for about half an hour after you've figured it out. Then you'll probably feel stupid again when you start solving your next challenging problem.

You will never feel like you know enough

If you feel like you've "made it," you're probably wrong. Everything changes so fast. A couple years ago, I thought I'd be out if I didn't learn Angular. Now I feel like I need to learn React instead. The popular languages and frameworks will change, and you will change with them.

Comparison is useless

There will always be people who know more than you do, and there will always be people who are learning things you've already learned.

Instead of feeling bad and/or arrogant about what you know or don't know, use those opportunities to teach those who are where you were last year, last month, last week, and to learn from those who are where you want to be next year, next month, next week.

Questions?