Jeremy Miller tagged me on the “Becoming a Better Developer” meme that’s been going around in the echosphere. I will say that I’m not a fan of forward-reaching statements. It’s not because I fear I won’t make those goals, in fact I doubt I’ll be held to them. My aversion to the grand proclamation comes more from a deep seeded sense of self-propriety. When it comes to honing or improving my own skill I’ve historically had better luck in gradual, quiet change in small steps. Agile self-improvement?
Sure, like any other developer, I’ll have the periodic larval stage in which I’ll tackle a new technology, method, or paradigm (Agile, OO, .NET, COM, CSS: to name a few). The thing is that it is very hard to predict where and when the need or will to pupate will arise.
Sidebar: I’m feeling an internal call to move from Ruby newb to ninja, but being pretty busy these days I need to find a reason and a way to put it in my path. Still, this larval stage is writing on the wall.
Okay, I think I’ve disclaimed enough there. Time to buck up, be a good sport, stop taking myself so seriously, and answer the question: how I will become a better developer in the next six months?
#1: I will release an open source project.
I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage. [Nietzsche]
I need to put my technique out there for criticism, input, and all around dogfooding. It’s great to have conversations and reply to mailing list posts with little fragments, but I can’t imagine anything better for soliciting ongoing critique from a variety of sources. This project will certainly be an application that I can use every day and will fill a gap I’m feeling in my development toolbox. I have an idea in mind but won’t spill the beans just yet.
I’ve been considering this for a long time and the question has been whether to create something new or to become commiter to something that already exists. I’ll say that I’ll do the former initially for reasons of creative satisfaction, though I won’t discount the possibility of the latter. Contributing to the Castle Project or NHibernate is something I definitely should do. Until then I’ll hope my evangelism helps in some small way.
#2: I will work on my coaching skills.
You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine. [Obi-Wan Kenobi]
Even the most rock star developer hits a limit in terms of productivity. At a certain level of output and desired maintainability it takes a village. I firmly believe the implicit-but-pervasive Agile belief that the team is the essential unit of organization. I’ve made good strides toward this, coaching is a regular part of my job, but there’s always another level and I can improve.
An example: I saw this special about the themes in Star Wars on TV a short while back. One of the things that I remember is the section on mentorship. They talk about Obi-Wan and Yoda mentoring Luke and about how, at a certain point, both mentors knew when to withdraw for the benefit of the student. Remember when Obi Wan disengaged his Light Saber letting Darth Vader cut him down? Knowing just when to go away and challenge is sometimes hard for me but I need to find that sweet spot on this and many other points.
#3: I will improve my communication skills.
The whole course of things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey. There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word…. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into you as life, place yourself in the full center of that flood, then you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment. [Ralph Waldo Emerson]
I think I’m an OK communicator, but I have room to improve. I view communication as regards software development (and many other activities) as being composed of three main dimensions:
- Self-Expression - Am I clear? Precise? How efficiently am I making my point?
- Listening – How well do I actively listen to others?
- Encouraging – How can I encourage and facilitate the conversation?
Sometimes I might get a tad impatient with people and could throttle back on that or find new tactics. To be clear: I don’t want to be the kind of leader that delivers edicts or dogma from on high. People support a world they help create, and I’m actively looking for ways, without resorting to simple consensus, to support the people that would create their world.
Presenting is another area where I can expose myself to the test of my communication skills. With my blog I also started speaking at various CodeCamps and NUGs, but it’s time to take it to another level and open my horizons on topics. I can’t even express the value that speaking has on sharpening your knowledge of the subject you’re talking about. It’s the act that moves subconscious instinct to the conscious, precise knowledge. Precision is everything when you want to be heard.
#4: I will write (blog) more.
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. [Anaïs Nin]
I’m relatively new to the ‘sphere. I’ve really only been blogging (in earnest) since last October. Still I’ve not quite integrated it into my day-to-day. Like Jeremy, I can’t begin to convey the benefits of “joining the conversation”. That’s really what a blog is: your proxy to the larger conversation. On the belief that increasing the quality and quantity of my posts will increase the quality and quantity of exposure conversation I’ll up my average weekly posts to three.
Whether or not I post every day I need to write every day. I feel my writing is getting better, faster and more to the point, but I want to take it to the next level. To get there I need to:
- Write every day even if I’m not posting every day.
- Get out of the echo chamber; I feel myself sometimes getting sucked in.
- Write when the inspiration hits, even if it’s a rough sketch in my notebook.
- At a certain point just let it go.
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