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100 Six Things I Want Every Developer To Know · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator Tim Corey.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to a very special episode of Dev Questions.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is the 100th episode of this series.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I have answered 99 questions about being a developer over these past couple of years.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And today I want to do something a bit different.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of answering another question, I thought I'd give you the six things that I want every developer to know.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it'd be a good time to kind of take a step back and talk through these things so that you can know what my heart for you is and how you can be a better developer.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So let's jump right into today's episode of Dev Questions.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing I want everyone to know is that I believe in you.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that a lot of people don't hear very often, but I want you to know that.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in every one of you for being a developer.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that you can be a good developer.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that you can succeed as a developer.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you may say, well, Tim, you don't know everyone.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know who's listening to this.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I believe you can do it.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that with my whole heart.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear that.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Too often we hear about people putting roadblocks or obstacles in the way saying, Well, if you were only this, well, if you were that, you could be.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: But not everybody.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can be a developer and you can be good at it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can't be a rock star.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone can.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I can't necessarily be a rock star at being developing.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, you can be a good developer.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can be successful at it.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to know that.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, I want you to know that you can do it.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: There are times when people are going to say, no, you can't, you know, or kind of drag you back, or say, or maybe even yourself, maybe you're the biggest critic, where you say, I can't do this.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can do it.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to take time, it's going to take perseverance, it's going to take some hard work, but you can do it.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: The key to being a developer is not about being this really smart math-based person who is yada yada.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: The key to being a developer is perseverance, just pushing through.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can do this.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, number three, everyone struggles.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to hear that from a person that you may think doesn't.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And absolutely that's not true.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I joke about the fact that I put dents in my desk from my head.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that to an extent is true because the fact that I often bang my head against the desk saying, I can't do this.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I have learned over the years that I can, if I persevere, if I push through, if I just keep working at it, everyone struggles.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: It does not matter who you're talking about.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: They have, at one point or another in their career, struggled.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And usually they struggle almost every day.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So when you struggle, just remember that you're not alone.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're not the only person that has trouble getting through things.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're not the only person that has a hard time.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about, again, your intelligence level or your abilities or anything like that.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the fact that this is part of being a software developer, is the struggle.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: We have to solve new problems.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: We have to come up with new ways of doing things, and that can be difficult.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So don't feel bad about struggling.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Don't think that you're less because you struggle.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone struggles.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, this is very important.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I keep coming back to this, stick with it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Often I see people give up when they are so close to a breakthrough.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Often when you're climbing a mountain, you think about how far you have to go and you kind of start focusing in on the fact that it's just it's hard, and you're you're looking down, you're looking at your feet, and you're saying, I can't go any further, I can't go any further.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if you take a step back and look at where you're at, you're almost to the peak.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And yet you get discouraged and say, Well, I can't do this.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: But if you were looking at the peak and saying, this is how close I am, or you're looking at how far you've come and how much you have done, then it would encourage you to keep going.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want for you is to keep going.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Stick with it.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just because it's hard doesn't mean you should give up.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know what?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of things in life are hard, but you can do this, you can push through, you can persevere.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, number five, treat software development as a marathon, not a sprint.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I often see new developers jump in with enthusiasm, and I love that enthusiasm.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact that you want to just consume everything and know everything and binge watch every training video.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: But treat it as a marathon.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you sprint out of the gate in a marathon, then you will pass the entire field.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: You will get in front of all the other runners.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean you will finish the race first.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because at some point your body will give out.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, you'll be too tired to go on.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the same is true with software development.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you try to just consume all the content all at once, it's not going to happen.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to get discouraged, you're going to get overwhelmed, you're going to get run down, and you're not going to be able to continue.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Take the time necessary to set a pace that is sustainable.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is about a long-term process.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you may not know everything, and you may feel like you're not good enough because you don't know everything.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: No one does.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: You are good enough, just where you're at.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Learn a bit at a time.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Take your time, work through the process, and make sure that you allow enough time for your brain to absorb it, allow enough time for your mind to be refreshed, and allow enough time to move on to that next topic in a way that makes sense for you.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you learn slowly.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Take your time.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Learn it and learn it well.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: The person who learns the topic well will be better than the person who learned it quickly.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Don't compare yourself against somebody else.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Just because they learn something fast doesn't mean you have to eat as well.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And does not mean you're less than if you don't learn it as fast as they do.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Learn at your pace.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Treat it as a marathon.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, my final tip, and it's one you've heard me say a lot if you've watched any of my training videos, and that is practice.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: This goes along with that marathon perspective.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: The idea that you need to take the time to really understand what you're learning.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't come from watching or reading, it comes from doing the action of coding, the action of taking what you've learned and putting it into code.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because often that process will teach you more about the topic than just the video or just the blog or whatever resource you used.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: By actually putting code into the system and using it and trying it, that's when you learn about your assumptions.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: You learn about what things don't work, you learn about how to tweak things and even new things that you didn't see in the original content.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Take the time to practice.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is what will separate you from the developers who give up over time.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Treat it as a marathon and practice as you go.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I do believe in you.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I know you can do this.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: I am here to encourage you along the way.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: My whole goal in this channel, in this in dev questions, in my YouTube channel, all my content, my goal is to make the learning process easier for you because I know you can do it.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to help guide you through it.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So good luck in your programming journey.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this encourages you.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you realize that there's someone out there that believes in you.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that encourages you to move forward in your development journey.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being a part of Dev Questions.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being a part of this hundred episodes.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait for the next hundred.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you have questions that you want to see answered, go to suggestions.imtimcorey.com, leave that suggestion there, or upvote one that matches what you're looking for.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you'll see that in a future episode of Dev Questions.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being a part of this.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, I am Tim Corey.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Dev Questions.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcorey.com.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcore.com and enroll in a course.