You Should Play (A Lot) More

This is a guest blog post from Zach Turner. Enjoy.

Dear New Developer,

Don’t forget to play. I spent the year after undergraduate working and learning. My goal  was to find a job at a company and eventually I succeeded. However my passion dwindled because it was always put second to finding a salaried position. As a result, my desire to play with and learn about new technologies simply because they are interesting has dwindled and my enjoyment of my job has suffered.

Allow yourself to approach the world as a kid again. Buy an electronics kit and only do
the first example experiment. Learn Hello World in 30 different languages. Start a passion project without worrying about finishing it. If you do finish it, try rewriting it in a new language. Think about a tool (software) that you would like to use, no matter how small or silly, and make it. There is so much pressure to know the newest and most popular languages and frameworks, and have a clean GitHub repo full of complete, relevant, and useful projects. That is especially appealing if you’re looking for a job. Yes, you should have a couple projects that are showcase worthy and speak to your desire to competently code. You should also be able to speak to your desire to learn and solve problems.

At the end of the day code is just a tool. No one faults a carpenter for having multiple hammers. I mean have you ever seen the garage of carpenter or maker, they are usually a glorious mess of projects in various states. Play and don’t fear clutter. Clean as you go and organize if you must. I’d rather have the GitHub of Doc Brown over Patrick Bateman any day. You can be a competent, intelligent adult and still play. If you don’t want work to become a chore, you must play.

From,
Zach Turner

During the day Zach Turner is a software engineer at Culture Foundry, a full service digital agency. At night he is a maker of things useful, useless, and everywhere in between.