right mindset, tool adoption, code generators, solution assessment

This is Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Noor podcast. We will accomplish our goals through sharing experience, improving tech skills, increasing business knowledge, and embracing life. Let's dive into the next episode. Hello and welcome back. We are taking a break from our interviews during this season, and it's really to follow up on really one specific point. I guess it was made in the recent series of interviews with Krishna. There's a comment he made that had to do with companies needing to be, or I guess organizations and individuals could fall into this, being into, needing to be into the right mindset to really take advantage of what he could offer. He could look at a company and say, hey, we want to grow you, we can grow you X amount. We can add $2 million to your revenue. However, you have to be ready for it. That's really the point I want to sort of spend a little time and belabor that point a little bit, because I also just recently had a question about products in general. Actually, I guess not products in general. It's really more about software development, coding generator products. Although we talk about a lot of such things, the question was, what are the concerns? What are some things that you should be thinking about when you do this? With all of the recommendations we make, the products we talk about, the processes, the procedures, the steps, the investment in becoming a better developer. I want to focus a little bit on right time, right place, essentially. There are a lot of things that we talk about, and hopefully you see that there are some cases where, whether the interviewee or the product or the process or the mindset or even the roadmap that we are talking about, it's not really a perfect fit for you. Whether it is the season of life you are in and by season of life, there are very different concerns when you are just coming out of college, when you're young and single, when you're starting your career, when you're building a family, when you're in the heart of your career and managing a family and managing a career. Then when you get further on where you're trying to figure out maybe what your legacy is or what your career looks like as it starts to wind down and what does retirement look like. There are so many things that go on in life that make each of our experiences specific and unique. That also means that the tools that we talk about, the solutions that we provide here, always consider, is this a fit for me? Think of it as an outfit, the most simple thing there. If you see an outfit in a store that looks awesome, maybe you see somebody wearing it, I don't know, like a Justin Bieber or Brad Pitt or whatever it is, whoever it is, or Beyonce, just pick a name, somebody that is like a fashion icon. You see somebody wearing an outfit and you say, wow, that's awesome. That looks great. Now, if you go and get that outfit, it may not look so great on you. Maybe your body type is very different. Maybe that person is 15 years old and you're 75 years old or vice versa. There are so many factors that go into any solution. That includes all of these things we talk about. I want to almost have a caveat or a warning that as we talk about all of these different ways that we can improve ourselves, that we can build ourselves into a better developer or advance our career or even in some cases, find happiness, find that job that is our dream job. These all may be not the solution for you. Just as we know, it is very important to understand the problem specifically that we're solving for our customers or our employers. It is also very important for us to assess a problem before we decide to adopt a solution. That includes what we'll call partial solutions, processes and procedures that are helping us maybe move to a better position to solve a problem or to address some outlier or tangential issues to solve that problem. That could be, think about this on a big scale. Let's say that you're trying to solve the problem of being able to earn enough money in your earning years to be able to retire comfortably. That's not a simple problem and that's not something that has only one factor in it. There are things like what is a comfortable retirement? What are you willing to invest in those early years for that retirement? What does your cost of living look like now and in the future and in retirement? It goes on and on and on. There are all these people that we're talking to and you can hear all these different aspects and viewpoints into their careers, the business world, life in general. I have found, and hopefully this is something that may work for you a little bit, that it is useful to pick and choose a little bit. What works for me, for example, 100% of what it is will probably not work for you because you're not me. It's a different solution or a different solution, different situation. For yourself, take a look at these things as almost a buffet or something along those lines where you can sort of a la carte your way into becoming a better developer. I say this because there are things that we talk about over and over again where we talk about these things that are maybe even game changers, but definitely make a big difference for us. Us being, whether it's me talking on the podcast or whether it's some of the conversations that come out of the podcast, it's all about the conversation, whether it's some of the conversations that come out of the mentor masterminds, kinds of things that we do, some of the presentations that we make. We are often focused a little tightly when we're talking about whatever that topic or that product or that solution is. Because it is, for example, like a code generator, to go back a little bit to the things that sparked this episode, a code generator for React Native. Let's say I have one that I can go in, I can do some stuff and I can go out and it's going to generate this really nice set of code for a React Native application. If my need is for a desktop, a Windows desktop application, React Native may not be what I want and probably isn't. I may be much better off looking for a C sharp code generator. I can find a C sharp code generator and be very focused on that desktop solution and tell you about how awesome it is and all the stuff it does. But obviously, if you're not looking for the same solution, then the fit and the almost the cell that we make on these ideas is not really for you. Just because we get excited about it and we think this is great and this is awesome and we want to use this tool or use this process or bake this into the things that we do on a regular basis. One does not mean it's useful to you, maybe at all. And two, sometimes it doesn't even mean we're going to be able to because there is only so much that you can do. And particularly, there's only so much that you can change at a given time and realize what works and what doesn't. This actually goes back to science. If somebody's doing an experiment, this includes the icky science of chemistry and biology and stuff like that, or the science of advertising. Anything that is a scientific approach, one of the things you do is you limit the variables. If you're going to compare A and B, you want there to be as minimal differences as possible between A and B so you can isolate if the thing that you change actually does have an impact. And we have talked about this at times, we've touched on it, but I think it's something that's worth revisiting. And that's the idea of picking one thing, making that change, work on it for a while, give it enough time to settle in and to have some impact. Typically, I've mentioned several times because I've seen so many things on the idea of a habit being something that you can build in 21 days. I don't know if that's actually true or not. I've just seen a lot of stuff. For me, it feels like, yeah, if you go do something between two to four weeks, it can become a habit. And I think to truly evaluate something, you have to see if when it becomes a habit, it works. Diets are a great example. You can go and you can diet and lose a lot of weight in 10 days, particularly if you just starve yourself, but you can't maintain that. So in looking at these solutions or even these bits of solutions where you say, hey, that sounds like a great idea. I'm going to try that thing that was mentioned. Make sure that you give it enough time to do some effect and that you are intentional about it. So if you're going to do five minutes of something every day, make sure that you do that five minutes of it every day for a couple of weeks and make sure that it feels like, or that it settles in as something that you could continue to do that for five minutes every day, day in, day out, month in, month out, year in, year out. And then also at that point, take a look, does this help? Does this work for me? You think about so many of the little things that we have suggested. For example, spending 15 minutes a day writing just to get yourself in the habit of being able to write and being able to communicate better. Now, one, you may already write all the time, so it doesn't really help necessarily. Two, you may hate that so much that it drains you to spend that 15 minutes. And so maybe the cost of becoming a better writer is not one that you need to pay. The benefits may not outweigh the cost of doing so. And we see this in, there's all sorts of different things that we talk about where that it should be a factor. It is a factor, but it also, because it's a factor whether we consider it or not, but that means it's also should be something that we consider. We don't need to take anything as, oh yeah, great. That's going to work. Because even if it looks like an apples to apples comparison, it may not be. It could be that what we are experiencing, where we're at, the environment, the culture, the context around our problems or that solution are just enough that it throws off the value of it. And so that goes to, for example, because I wanted to sort of swing back around to this, the idea of code generators. And I'll be doing a blog on this one, so that's why I just wanted to throw a couple ideas out to give an example. We've talked about them many, many times. We've seen power in those. We've seen where there is consistency that can come from it. There is speed that can come from it. There is maintainability that can come from it. There's scalability sometimes that can come from it because the code generator people, the ones that wrote it, spent time, researched it, understood that in this problem that the code generator is generating code to solve, we see this as the best solution. Now, of course, the downside, which we can apply to any of these things is that there is always going to be a blind spot for people, for organizations, for anything. They just exist. There's always a limit to our viewpoint. And where those limits exist could be exactly the area that you stumble upon that mean that that solution, that recommendation is not a good one for you. So don't be afraid to take a step back and look at how that solution, that process, that thing that you're latching onto works for you. In a code generator sense, take a look at the code that it generates. If you can, generate it for your problems, for the solutions that you're creating and take a close look at it. Don't just assume that it's awesome and it works or it works if it compiles. Kick the tires a little bit. Another thing is that we learn through challenges and obstacles. Everybody, I know at some point or another, bemoans how difficult life can be and all of the challenges and stuff like that. But if you were to flip that around and there were no challenges and everything was easy, we would never grow. We would never get anywhere. So one of the things to consider when you are looking for something to help you, is that a, the cliche, is it a hand up or a handout? Is this something that is a tool you're going to use to further your objectives, to reach your goal? Or is it a crutch? Is it something that you're leaning on that becomes something that without it, you eventually come to a conclusion that you're leaning on that becomes something that without it, you eventually cannot move forward? Code generators are another great example of this, where there are now, there's like a generation of developers that have used these code generators and these configurable environments to the point where they really don't understand the underlying coding that goes into these things. They are so focused on the tasks that they do and building on these, either these generated platforms or these pre-built FAT platforms, or essentially even like a software as a service, just extending that service, whatever it is, as opposed to understanding how to build that such a thing from scratch. It would be as if for auto mechanics, nobody knew how to build cars anymore, but all they did was just repair the cars that existed. There's a point where there's still knowledge that needs to be out there. There's still skills that need to be learned or mastered that these tools that we have mask them or hide them. And so that's the other thing I want you ask yourself. Not only will this thing help me, but is it good for me to be helped by this thing? Would it be better for me instead of using that tool, that process, would it instead be better for me to struggle through it, figure it out myself, and maybe craft my own solution? That also goes back sort of a call back to Krishna is that there's a lot that he gained. There's a lot that he learned early on, and he was given a lot of information. He was taught a lot. He experienced a lot, but then he looked at that combination of content, of material, of skills, and learning that he got and converted it into creating his own unique solution. And so sometimes that thing that allows you to solve the problem sooner may also be the thing that blocks you from taking a quantum leap forward by developing your own solution that you can then share with others. It's just several things I want to reiterate and to just have you think about a little bit as we're going through these, because as I said, we've so many of these interviews for myself even, there's just golden nugget after golden nugget after golden nugget. There's all these little things that have been mentioned and these concepts and these ideas and these experiences that I say, wow, that's awesome. I can use that. I can make use of that, and I can apply it to this thing or that thing. I can use it to get to a solution faster. I can use it as a way to help myself become better. However, be careful. Don't always assume that that's necessarily going to be the best approach even for yourself. And so that is the challenge of the week. With the things that you are embracing currently, whether they are tools, whether they are processes, whether they are habits that you're building or bad habits that you're destroying, are some of these things approaches or objectives that maybe you should reassess? Because maybe getting there, the path that you're taking to get there is actually not the best path for you. It may be the easiest, it may be the quickest, but that doesn't mean it's the best. It may even be a best practice in general, but for you, maybe it is better for you instead of standing on the shoulders of those that have gone before you. This is something where you need to actually do it for yourself from scratch. I'm not sure how obvious or not some of things are that you can consider, but I think keeping that in the back of your mind at least will help you come to these with the proper mindset and understanding that yes, these can be great ideas, these can be great tools, but they may not be great tools for you or for myself. That being said, I'll get you back to ponder that for a while before we come back next time. We're going to get back in another interview, switch gears again, different interviewee, and we're just going to continue moving forward because like I said, this has been great. A lot of great information. I hope you're enjoying this and taking notes. If you have somebody you want to recommend, send them my way. I would probably love to talk to them. There's not too many we turn away because I find everybody has a unique story and incredible experiences that are worth sharing with others. So that being said, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Developer Noor Podcast. For more episodes like this one, you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, and other podcast venues, or visit our site at developernoor.com. Just a step forward today is still progress. So let's keep moving forward together. One more thing before you go, the Developer Noor Podcast and site are a labor of love. We enjoy whatever we do trying to help developers become better. If you've gotten some value out of this and you'd like to help us, be great if you go out to developernoor.com slash donate and donate whatever feels good for you. If you get a lot of value, a lot. If you don't get a lot of value, even a little would be awesome. In any case, we will thank you and maybe I'll make you feel just a little bit warmer as well. Now you can go back and have yourself a great day.