The Code Will Never Judge You

This is a guest post from Lorna Mitchell. Enjoy.

Dear new developer,

Recently, I decided my seven-year-old niece was old enough for her first programmable device. She has done a little bit of Scratch with me, so I bought her a BBC micro:bit (a very simple programmable device, with a web editor and USB connection, some buttons and some LEDs) and showed her how to get started. Then I said to my sister (whose child this is) “the tears are all part of the software development process, so try not to worry when it happens!”. However many years down the path I am myself, coding is still a rollercoaster and there are some downs as well as some ups.

One thing that makes software development more difficult is wondering if you are really cut out for this. It’s so easy to feel like you are doing software “wrong” in some way. Spoiler: there really isn’t a right way, it’s part art as well as part science. Keep the user in mind and apply the technology the best way you know how; you’ll go far.

Some days it doesn’t feel like it’s going well and you may wonder if you will ever be really good at your chosen profession. On other days, or perhaps overlapping days, other people will think you’re not cut out for it either. Maybe you think your skill set isn’t a good fit (it is), or that you don’t really look like a software developer (you do). It is very difficult to help other humans who have already decided that they don’t quite believe in you. From extensive field testing, I have found that almost none of them ever change their mind.

In fact, this is much less important than it seems. If you don’t understand the pop culture that inspired the bot/server names, you didn’t play the same computer games or watch the same films (I’ve still never seen Star Wars), that doesn’t impact on what you can be. For minorities of all stripes, not sharing the supposedly shared culture can really make you doubt yourself. That’s a human reaction, don’t feel bad for feeling your feelings. If you want to be a person who does play those games and watch those films, then go for it.

But if you are just there to be the best software developer you can be, then let the other things go past you, and focus on the things you really do want to learn from, and share with, the crowd. I think most of what I know about text editors, information security, and leadership I learned from colleagues or conference encounters. It took me far too long to realise that software developers do look and sound like I do, and my own interests and hobbies are no less valid than anyone else’s (I also know more very technical humans with yarncraft hobbies now).

The code will never judge you. You show up, try things out, keep learning, keep iterating. That’s how software is made. It isn’t made of what other people thought you could do, it’s only made of what you did do, and for that you need to show up, and do.

— Lorna

Lorna is based in Yorkshire, UK; she is a Developer Advocate at Vonage as well as a published author and experienced conference speaker. Lorna is passionate about open source technologies and sharing knowledge, code and experiences with developers everywhere. In her spare time, Lorna blogs at https://lornajane.net.