Personal Strategy, and the tactics to bring it forward

In my wood shop there is a 1902 Stanley Bailey No. 5 plane that is a particular favorite. It isn’t the prettiest, or most exotic; there is a constant battle with surface rust and the allure the rosewood handles have long lost their luster. It is heavy and dented, more suited for the roll of a doorstop. It sits among Japanese pull planes, a Veritas low angle plane, and other specialty planes built for tongue and groove or moulding. It is an array of planes gathered from flea markets, eBay, and garage sales. And that Stanley Bailey No. 5 from 1902 is the personal favorite.

To be fair it’s the blade I love the most. Old steel has way of holding its edge. It may take a little longer to achieve, a bit more temperamental in getting it set up right, but when that edge is sharp and that plane is in tune, shavings come off clean and effortlessly, even in the most stubborn of hardwoods.

I use water stones for sharpening. They are messy and are not easy to keep. In the northern climates any sub zero weather will freeze the water trapped inside and crack them open. Loosing a stone costs between $50 and $100. Loosing all the stones to one freeze would be catastrophic.

But setup right, with good concentration for holding the right angle with a well practiced motion, the edge produced is sharp, strong, and polished.

All these elements brought together make the work easy, clean, and efficient…making the end product that much richer.

And that is were I am in my professional world. By day I spend my time in editors and the command line bringing functionality to client websites. Mostly Drupal, sometimes Wordpress, usually PHP, but more and more Javascript.

And I’m old. Gray hair, grumpy old. My first car was a 70 Mustang with an 8-track mounted under the dash. I started my computer career on SCO Unix and Novell, before they were together. My first Linux install was a stack of floppies, a Slackware install, I have no idea which kernel.

I’ve been in this business for a long time, and there are a lot of younger people out there that can do a lot more, a lot faster, and sometimes that is scary. But we push on, always learning something new. At least trying.

And that is the reason for this post. I have an overall strategy on being a better developer. These are some tactics and ideas I work with:

1. Stay off the bleeding edge: Too much happens too quickly in the world of development. By staying focused on tried and true I will spend less of my time spinning wheels in the sand.
2. Constantly watch what is coming off that bleeding edge to see what will become the new tried and true.
3. Invest in learning. Your employer may purchase opportunities for you, such as Lynda.com. Do not let that stop you from spending your own money as well. Sometimes resources are free; such as Lynda.com at some libraries are available to its members. I personally have a monthly subscription to KNPUniversity.com and have purchased several learning series from Wesbos.com. Can not recommend him enough, btw.
4. See what your peers are learning. Ask them why they are learning what they are learning, and revisit them to see if what they have learned stuck with them. If they have learned a new language, framework, or library, and gush over it, then maybe you should look into it, right?
5. Learn every day. Take time every work day to sharpen your tools. Half hour or so going over a how to video or coding something unique and fun will build into a great habit. If you can’t do it during work hours, which happens for everyone at sometime, then do it in your personal time.
6. Understand you are going to make mistakes. Learn from them. Go over old code and see how bad of a coder you really were, and embrace it. Then see how much farther you have yet to go. It is frightening, but know every one of your peers is on the same journey. It is not a race. Help those that are behind you, and let those ahead of you lend a hand.
7. Know your limitations. Back when I was a firefighter I had classmates who could read the material and ace the test. (This was really annoying in paramedic school!) For me it takes more than just reading the material. I have to do the work, watch videos, read the material, do some more work, watch more videos…and so on.
8. Learn how you learn best. Everyone is different. Find your own groove and own it. For me it is following along in a video, then going back and trying new things, seeing what breaks, and what doesn’t. Sometimes it locks into my memory, other times it is vaporous.
9. Make sure you come back to what you have learned. Reenforce it with actions, again and again.
10. Have fun! Build something you want to use, and share it with the world. Put an “I Made This” sticker on it. Push to github, share on twitter. Let the world know you are a maker. Whether it’s a table or a piece of code, you have fashioned something into existence that previously was only an idea.