Focus on community and good services
Recap
For me, 2015 was the toughest year in my life so far, and I liked it. It was amazing - full of mental and emotional challenges. I will remember 2015 as the year I started to see important details from the big picture, which I didn’t see before. I want to share about these details.
The big picture
It’s very dynamic, because I relocated to Belgium, and that was the first time I had to deliberately synchronize “my world” with a new “other world”. Before, I’ve worked abroad for couple of months now and then, but I always had a return ticket, which was not the case this time.
“My world” was pretty ok generally. In Bulgaria, I had a nice job as a web developer, I regularly did community work for Drupal Bulgaria foundation, giving out training and presentations now and then — I was pretty happy of myself to be honest, I felt on a track. Or a good level (it’s “the level” for developers, see).
An year later, many details started to light up in the big picture, and I was not prepared, I didn’t feel ok. I had to focus more. I had high expectations about my level, so I started digging more into the specifics of how to be as good as I expect myself to be, compared to my previous life in Bulgaria.
Focusing on the details of the big picture, I managed to see opportunities and good practices that I can conclude to be reusable for anyone. Reusable in such a way that even I will benefit of a given paradigm if I read it after few years.
Technology and code
It’s always been and will be a lot about technology for me. Until 2015, I was very heavy enthusiast about Drupal. There have been many big projects I’m proud of in the past. Working on big projects has always been a good way to battle-test good software as Drupal.
Starting my new job in Belgium, I quickly realized how much I don’t know. Even bigger project, infrastructure complexity, i.e. higher demands for my developer skills. Something was going on in my brain, I started being less enthusiastic about the specific software package or tool, but I got more enthusiastic about the factors that make a project successful.
My team was bigger and I had to learn new workflows, new tools and ways to communicate my personal beliefs about why a given solution is better than the other. I learned the hard way that good communication around issues improves results. Sometimes even just looking at an issue from a perspective with good questions and communication, lead to solution without coding. Nothing new for communicators, but for hard-core devs: learn how to debate on your code solutions.
It was also the first time to do peer reviews and anything else related to sitting down with another developer and showing my code. When I knew my code will be reviewed, I changed the way I express myself in code and started focusing also on beauty and technique, not only quick-fix. Writing code with aesthetics is good — the overall quality increases and it makes a given piece of work easier to validate.
I also started reading other developers’ code more frequently. I guess it’s a natural reflex of comparing myself. Reading code from other developers turned so helpful — it’s like reading books, but more involving.
People and community
At some point these small details started to shine. It was time to realize that no matter if I write JavaScript, PHP or any other programming language, a good project is not only about the code, but also about the human interaction around the code.
I started joining code sprint, hack jams, issue queues in drupal.org, etc. I had the aha! moment that the human factor around code and software make the coding itself more fun. By collaborating with other developers in work, community and open source, I learned more times more than my previous level I had of 4 years of solo-learning.
I still have so much to learn about the good ways of interaction with other smart developers, but I’ve already hooked on my strong belief that healthy collaboration is the best way advance in any technology and project. It’s not just about the software.
Even more motivation was the end of the year, my team at the European Commission was awarded to be the best project team :)
It’s pretty rewarding to be the best :D
What about 2016
For me, 2016 will most probably be the year of community and good service.
Community, because it’s the hidden jam of happy coding and rapid self-development. Learning is faster, contribution is better, collaboration is fun.
Good service, because it’s why we developers write code. It’s easy to lose focus from that because we have too many paradigms, frameworks and libraries to understand to be productive. Yet, we write code to make good products and provide good service.
First come the good product and service, then the good results give the means of winning the time to try and use the latest cutting edge technologies.