4 ms·

> Spend weekends and late nights in front of your computer, laying down lines of code, debugging and developing your personal projects. This is the only thing

> Spend weekends and late nights in front of your computer, laying down lines of code, debugging and developing your personal projects. This is the only thing I disagree with. Although this would be good for your career, it does not work for all types of people.

tracker1 11y ago
If you're just starting out, and not doing this, you won't get very far, at least not very fast... if just starting out is in school, or out... It takes at least 5 years to master any skill/craft... and even then given the churn in tech, specifically with development, you have to put more in to get to a good point. I don't do as much on my own time as I used to... but I absolutely did for the first decade of my career.
- craigvn 11y ago
  If you are not doing personal projects or work on the side you will never be top 5-10% of devs. But the majority of devs are building reports and doing maintenance for some fortune 500 insurance co, they are doing fine.
  - yoklov 11y ago
    If you're trying to impress with your skills, you should aim to be in the 1st group, rather than the 2nd.
    - Bahamut 11y ago
      While that's true, not everyone is looking for that in their career was the point of the post you replied to. Every person has different career goals.
    - arvinsim 11y ago
      I don't know why you are downvoted. It is just a matter of what you want in your career. To get to the top, you need to put in the extra effort.
  - howsitrelevant 11y ago
    I think this is mostly true. There are a lot of us now who grew up with very advanced programming languages that allowed us to learn very advanced programming practices and principals at a very young age. We've also been allowed to learn modern languages very quickly, half attributed to our spongey brain, the other to the free time we had growing up. They're the same languages that companies are built on nowadays. Now we're in the workforce, in a few years time we'll have a wealth of knowledge not considered deep by experts, but "good enough" by many. And if we've stuck with a particular area, or a particular language we'll be able to flout ourselves as "masters", when in reality, we've just screwed the bolt so many times, we know how many screws it takes. And the bar will be raised. Because you raised it for us, and then you made it easier for us to learn to raise it ourselves. The complexity of development has increased massively in the last 15 years. Not just the languages (arguably becoming less complex), or the frameworks, or the different patterns or technologies (ala queueing, authentication, architecture and environments).. But the sheer wealth of knowledge required for an entry level dev job. We're full stack. We can do a DBA's, an architects, a BA's and a technical writers job - we've been doing it on our own since our age reached double digits. We haven't just built the car. We've designed it, we've tested it, we've pulled it together and have gone on to become professional drivers. Sure some of the parts.. We don't know how they work. But we know that they do work. And we know they're reliable. Why reinvent the wheel when you can import it?
  - tzs 11y ago
    > If you are not doing personal projects or work on the side you will never be top 5-10% of devs That's a bit too strong a generalization, I believe. To become and remain a top 5-10% developer you need to do varied and challenging projects, but I see no need for them to be personal projects or side work. It is quite possible for one's regular job to provide the variety and challenge necessary to develop and maintain top developer skills. It can be hard to find such jobs, but they are out there.
    - pjc50 11y ago
      People really need to be more specific about what they're measuring when they say "top".
mattlondon 11y ago
If you really enjoy what you do, you'll find yourself sucked into doing this in your spare time anyway. For a lot of us, we're really blessed to do something that we actually enjoy.
- arvinsim 11y ago
  That's correct. I just don't think that everyone wants to. Some are perfectly content with the 9-5 routine.
mamoswined 11y ago
It's interesting because I and most other female developers I know got into programming like this. When I try to sell it to other women I know who are looking for a better line of work, I think this is the biggest obstacle for them. They just don't want to do it/aren't interested. Whereas when I was a teenager I'd happy spend all night modding games or making websites about ponies.

tracker1 11y ago

If you're just starting out, and not doing this, you won't get very far, at least not very fast... if just starting out is in school, or out... It takes at least 5 years to master any skill/craft... and even then given the churn in tech, specifically with development, you have to put more in to get to a good point. I don't do as much on my own time as I used to... but I absolutely did for the first decade of my career.

craigvn 11y ago
If you are not doing personal projects or work on the side you will never be top 5-10% of devs. But the majority of devs are building reports and doing maintenance for some fortune 500 insurance co, they are doing fine.
- yoklov 11y ago
  If you're trying to impress with your skills, you should aim to be in the 1st group, rather than the 2nd.
  - Bahamut 11y ago
    While that's true, not everyone is looking for that in their career was the point of the post you replied to. Every person has different career goals.
  - arvinsim 11y ago
    I don't know why you are downvoted. It is just a matter of what you want in your career. To get to the top, you need to put in the extra effort.
- howsitrelevant 11y ago
  I think this is mostly true. There are a lot of us now who grew up with very advanced programming languages that allowed us to learn very advanced programming practices and principals at a very young age. We've also been allowed to learn modern languages very quickly, half attributed to our spongey brain, the other to the free time we had growing up. They're the same languages that companies are built on nowadays. Now we're in the workforce, in a few years time we'll have a wealth of knowledge not considered deep by experts, but "good enough" by many. And if we've stuck with a particular area, or a particular language we'll be able to flout ourselves as "masters", when in reality, we've just screwed the bolt so many times, we know how many screws it takes. And the bar will be raised. Because you raised it for us, and then you made it easier for us to learn to raise it ourselves. The complexity of development has increased massively in the last 15 years. Not just the languages (arguably becoming less complex), or the frameworks, or the different patterns or technologies (ala queueing, authentication, architecture and environments).. But the sheer wealth of knowledge required for an entry level dev job. We're full stack. We can do a DBA's, an architects, a BA's and a technical writers job - we've been doing it on our own since our age reached double digits. We haven't just built the car. We've designed it, we've tested it, we've pulled it together and have gone on to become professional drivers. Sure some of the parts.. We don't know how they work. But we know that they do work. And we know they're reliable. Why reinvent the wheel when you can import it?
- tzs 11y ago
  > If you are not doing personal projects or work on the side you will never be top 5-10% of devs That's a bit too strong a generalization, I believe. To become and remain a top 5-10% developer you need to do varied and challenging projects, but I see no need for them to be personal projects or side work. It is quite possible for one's regular job to provide the variety and challenge necessary to develop and maintain top developer skills. It can be hard to find such jobs, but they are out there.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    People really need to be more specific about what they're measuring when they say "top".

mattlondon 11y ago

If you really enjoy what you do, you'll find yourself sucked into doing this in your spare time anyway. For a lot of us, we're really blessed to do something that we actually enjoy.

arvinsim 11y ago
That's correct. I just don't think that everyone wants to. Some are perfectly content with the 9-5 routine.

mamoswined 11y ago

It's interesting because I and most other female developers I know got into programming like this. When I try to sell it to other women I know who are looking for a better line of work, I think this is the biggest obstacle for them. They just don't want to do it/aren't interested. Whereas when I was a teenager I'd happy spend all night modding games or making websites about ponies.