Detailed Notes
In today’s episode, we’re diving deep into a topic many developers face but don’t always address: career plateaus. Whether you're a junior developer or a seasoned coder, hitting a plateau can feel frustrating. You're no longer learning at the same rapid pace, and the excitement of mastering new skills may have faded. But don’t worry; this episode explores how to break free from these plateaus and continue growing your software development career.
Read More ... https://develpreneur.com/breaking-through-career-plateaus-tips-to-accelerate-your-growth-as-a-developer
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Additional Resources
* Essential Habits for Software Developers: Boosting Productivity and Career Growth (https://develpreneur.com/essential-habits-for-software-developers-boosting-productivity-and-career-growth/)
* Pivoting: How to Embrace Change and Fuel Your Professional Growth (https://develpreneur.com/pivoting-how-to-embrace-change-and-fuel-your-professional-growth/)
* Are Technology Certifications Necessary For Career Growth? (https://develpreneur.com/are-technology-certifications-necessary-for-career-growth/)
* Be Intentional In Choosing Tasks For Career Growth (https://develpreneur.com/be-intentional-in-choosing-tasks-for-career-growth/)
Transcript Text
[Music] okay this time I'm recording I can't even cck record these days hi everybody we're back um last episode series of stuff uh we're working on like what were we it was like requirements Gathering we were talking about how to do those a little better how to make the most use of time and such I am vamping while I'm trying to find our podcast ideas I think we had a couple of good ones uh oh that was one those are for the next season which those would be good we talked about scope creep little bit go ahead well we did uh defining dun and agile and supercharger Focus yep we did Focus let's see which is basically dealing with an overwhelming task uh did we have anything that jumped out or do you have anything that's jumps out at you uh otherwise I think I've got one to give us a start not offhand uh other than like I was thinking through the problem solving stuff that we did again and I was really thinking you know after we kind of looked at some of the data stuff and requirements the other day I was looking at and thinking you know this is like the scientific method writing code is pretty much trial and er you you have an idea you write code you spit it out test and it you know it really does follow that scientific method for some reason that just kind of stuck in my head uh the last day or two uh I don't know if it's really worth the topic but it's just one of those where ways to kind of break it down not necessarily just the sdlc or stlc but just how to analyze walk through the pro I know we've talked about it a lot and we may have talked through it to death for this season but it's something you know maybe we can bring it back up next season yeah I'm trying to figure out if we would do how we would do that one um but that's actually the idea I had was a little bit getting into sort of like a maybe a precursor into what we would do next season anyways which was more of a yeah I'm trying to because it was really was getting into like doing it's almost like having a daily challenge or something like that it's just microw ways to get better and we've talked about that a lot um but it's one I don't think I have and it was more the idea of like challenge yourself to it's really like learn something new every day and it's really I that I think that's where I want to go with that was let's see is it's a little bit of I don't think we've covered this one yet in this season or maybe in the past that we've spent that much time it's how do you when you're in a remote environment when you're doing a remote job in particular or doing a A solopreneur or something like that we have a team around you it's like how do you get better how do you you because a lot of people it's like there's one thing it's like hey I can go learn a pro I can learn a programming language but learning it the right way or the best way usually takes more than just like you know reading something or like I can hey I can hammer out some problems in this it gets a little bit more into what are best best practices how do I find best pra practices um it does go back to the things that we have sort of had is like a recurring theme things like static code analysis and some of those kinds of things or going to like OAS or some of those places but it's also like how do I how do I grow how do I go from okay I know this to now I'm doing it better or doing it right some of the sources for that and that was I say say it is a i it's say it's a becoming a better developer and it's something that's really probably not as much an issue when you're early on because you're just drinking from the fire hose there's always something new but there is that point like how do you get off the plateau once you've plateaued now what do you do yeah and since we're I think this is episode 23 so this would be a good point to kind of cover that because we're kind of from the intro you know beginning of the journey the mid level we've touched on some closer to the end tasks this is kind of one like continuing to grow kind of thing I like that okay then we'll figure it out how this works well hello and welcome back we are continuing a season where we are going through the developer Journey we are building better developers we are develop andur I am Rob Broadhead I'm one of the founders of develop andur I'm also a founder of RB Consulting where we do we help you with technology sprawl and all the pain regarding that so we help you to automate we help you to simplify we help you to integrate all your systems to get that big thing you have down into a nice lean clean machine that allows you to just get your job done and not worry about the technology going with our sort of newish thing that we've got with a good thing bad thing I think I'll go ahead and throw mine out there real quick good thing is my youngest kids moved out of the house this weekend and we helped them move along with that was a bad thing because the first thing we did is we rented a trailer and when we got there we did not have the right size hitch so somebody had to go back and get the ball of bag of hitches basically so we can get the right size hitch for the trailer so moral of the story is either check beforehand or bring your bag big bag of stuff because you never know actually you do know if you don't bring it you will need something in the bag if you don't bring it I mean if you do bring it then you probably are fine so you might as well go that route on the other side that's got his big bag of tricks and so much more is Mike if you can go ahead and introduce yourself hey everyone my name is Michael malash I'm one of the co-founders of developer ner building better Developers I'm also the founder of Envision QA where we take test driven development and apply it to help small to midsize businesses and clinicians build software with testing in my to reduce the cost of software development good and bad good I finally fixed the two uh Gates we've had on the farm for the last four years um I had to run um had to get all the parts for it uh the bad news is I had to make multiple trips to Lowe's to get multiple Parts because I either didn't have the right clip or the wrong s little clip was too big or too small for the um little adapters to get the tension wire right yeah short followup to that when my oldest moved into his house first time he got a house and moved into that that was he knew he was truly adulting and that first weekend when we were moving him in he had like 10 trips to Lowe's that day he just kept going back it was like oh I need to get this I need to get that I need to get he's like wow I have never been I've like almost never been to this store and now he's been there like we told him like you're going to be there a lot just trust me moving on this episode we're going to talk about like basically it's a getting off of the plateau it's growing off of a plateau and it's really it really is where we have these situations where we particular we early on either in our career or learning language or a new environment you sort of we'll call it you drink from the fire host you're just like learning learning learning learning learning every time you get in there there's something new you're learning you're getting better you're getting better at some point you sort of plateau you're comfortable with it and you can use it and maybe you're even a you know what they would call like a power user or something like that or very you know a accomplished developer because you have a long you know list of things that you can solve with that tool but maybe you're not uh a guru or an expert or something because you you maybe you self-taught or you've had a couple of lessons or you know a couple class CL es maybe you've gotten some sort of a certification or something like that but not really like truly master that skill or technology and that's where I want to talk about today is so what happens when you find yourself in that plateau and what are some ways that we can do that now one of them I've already mentioned is certifications I have found certifications very often particularly when there's a uh we'll say like a family or a series of certifications within a technology those are very helpful yes it's great on paper and you can say hey I'm certified and blah blah blah but in a lot of cases going through the process to be certified is in itself a really good learning opportunity you may all you probably know some level of what you're being certified on but then there's going to be all these details as an example you can go back to you know just pumping our pushing our own Goods but you can go back to some of our prior stuff we actually have a whole series in YouTube that is getting a python certification and in doing so I've been Python programming for quite a while but going through the syllabus there were several things that I just didn't use very often so it was a really good way to like explore all the pieces of that now in my past experience and and certifications I will throw out extra props to the well actually there's two places one was the Java series of certifications way way back one of the things that the certified I think certified developer was the at the time or certified architect I can't remember what it was but short story is the certification process was a test plus building an application so they said this they which walked you through here's the requirements here's what you need to do here's some things that you have to do in part of you know making this application work so it made sure that you for examp example your database was not a database it was a binary store so you had to be able to work with that and you had to put data in and pull it back out things like that those uh application type certifications are awesome another one is really anything I've touched and I haven't gotten all deep into it but any of the Amazon web services certifications and there's I think something like 4.2 billion different certifications there for all their services but the certification process learning it uh understanding the syllabus even and just walking through all the features every time I've done that was it was really an educational experience so those are great ways to move off of a a plateau is basically push yourself to almost go back into the academic world a little bit through certifications or maybe you get like a mastering blah blah language you know mastering Ruby on Rails or something like that kind of book and almost read it like almost page from you know front to back instead of using it as a reference or maybe even like if they have something that's like step one step two step three learn it in 30 days is actually go through those and really dig into the things that you don't use as much and this could be or or maybe it is as simple as say I've never used you know multi-threading in this language I want to see if I can do that I have never I don't know done like bit level Graphics in in this so I want to go try that if you can think of something that's a problem you solve somewhere else then maybe solving that in this new language will help you grow now the one other thing I wanted to throw out before and then I'm going to throw it to Michael is because we do this all the time is pointing to the uh you know step ofto day kind of approach one of the things you can do with this instead of you know maybe having a side project or going into certification is just it's it goes back to almost like a personal code review take a look at stuff that you've done in that language pick a a function a class or something like that and then review it with an eye towards is there a possibility that I could do this differently and it may be as simple as take that piece of code and throw it into like this is actually a good use of AI or something like take that code and throw it into you know a chat GPT or something like that and say how else what's a different way to write this code or what would be a better way to write this code or something along those lines because what you'll end up finding often is that you're going to have your we'll call it your crutch and the the thing I think of most often is in the world of java and their collections is there's a lot of different Collections and there is a specific uh strengths and you know strengths and weaknesses to each of them but most of us have the one that we fall back on it's the one that we're most comfortable with the one that we use the most often and it may not be the best and so if it's something you haven't used very often something like this where you're going back to that code review you're pushing maybe you look at use like a stady code analysis tool or look up like best practices or something like that with that language or that environment then you may find a couple things that you haven't used and that will allow you to you know Kick It Up kick it up a notch basically and maybe move off of that Plateau now I know I hit a couple of things sort of lightly and and maybe the one deeply but now I want to throw that over you Mike and what are what are some of the things that you do and some of the ways that you move yourself off of that Plateau Plateau when you find it so you you I like to how you touched on certification um you know kind of self- learning digging into the current existing technology so I'm going to keep us in Academia at the moment and kind of build a little bit off your certification so I like Rob agree the certifications are a jumping point to kind of get you started if you're not sure where to go within your current technology or language however I'm not a huge test taker person so so I don't do very well with standardized tests it takes me twice as long to prepare for those exams however and that's where I'm going to go with this is keeping it within Academia if you want to expand your knowledge of something or learn something new go at it in the mindset of teaching it to someone so a lot of the ways where I learned something new and I did this a lot over the last decade or so is is if I needed a skill or I wanted to expand a skill I would either start writing courses to try to teach myself how to do this right like how is this actually done so I kind of went in with that uh Biblical reference mindset where I did all my research on the particular topic then I tried to present it in a way that I could actually explain it to someone it's harder than you think to take something you've done for 20 years and try to teach it to someone that's when you really start getting into those details of well I know how to do this but why am I doing this and sometimes that why gets you into areas where oh well this is actually better let me go learn this and then you find it's peeling back that onion it's like oh every time you find something new it triggers something else you can go in a different direction now that that has allowed me to write boot camps and training materials but what the other thing is that this has led me to do is being the entrepreneurial mindset that I am is there are times where it's like I am very good at writing software I'm very good at Building Systems however I may not know JavaScript really well I do but say we'll take JavaScript as an example so it's been you know a while since I've got dip my toe in JavaScript but say I wanted to go do something with a newer JavaScript script Library the other thing you can do is go find a job on like freelancer.com or one of these other sites find something a project a topic an idea in that technology that kind of is you know linear or parallel to your path but pushes you to go learn something new doing what you're doing today and you can build your skill set not only that but you may fig find out that this is a better technology so maybe I need to start shifting my skill set over to this getting me out of this comfort zone and continuously pushing me forward now there's pros and cons to both of those but again if you're not kind of that outgoing person the certifications might be a better way to go about it however if you are more outgoing finding jobs or finding projects or the one thing we haven't touched on are hackathons you know different communities and areas they do have hackathons it's where you go in and you kind of join as a team or an individual they give you some problems and you try to work through them in a limited time set now you don't have to go to these groups you can do them personally you can go find online little hackathon topics but that's another way to kind of jumpstart your mindset as to where do you want to go with this kernal technology or just push yourself to see what you can really do without having to sit there with AI or Google all day to try trying to assist you with your coding now there's a there's a couple of great ideas that came out of that I'm glad that you you put it that way um first one is back many many years ago one of I was at a consulting company that actually no longer exists um and one of the things that they came up with was it wasn't I don't think it was paid or anything like that but what they would do is if there was a new technology out there and this is long ago long enough ago that like the new technology there was was like Del and the small talk uh it was visual age I think it was IBM's series of of idees and this is really this like this goes back this is before Java um and one of the things they would do is they'd say hey we will get this is you know how the company sort of rewarded you is they say hey we'll get you the you know the Enterprise version of that tool and then what you'll do is you take it and you build a tutorial exactly like Michael said and it usually the way it was up is we sort of had a it's really a template of you want something that highlights the strengths of the of the applica of the environment but then it's something that's moderately useful so it was usually something along the lines of like maybe a little uh you know a little a miniature like a low-end CRM application or something like that where it's just like I want to track some data and it's usually it's like hey so I can connect to a database I can pull data out I can do some you know basic interaction with that I can do some modification I can display stuff maybe do a report you know have a reporting tool or something like that but one of the things that we did with this these were all uh at the day back in the day this is when they were all desktop applications and one of the things that we would do is it would be walking through the polishing side of it so it would be things like going through and making sure all the help like the micro help showed up and making sure tab orders are right and all these things that you can you sort of forget about if depending on where you're at in an application so it really did get in some of the nitty-gritty details that depending on what you do helps you you know round out your skills another thing that it reminded me of as Michael was talking about is there's a thing called uh it's called the little lisper it was a way to learn the lisp programming language and the way they presented it was they started with it was always a question how do I do X in lisp and they what they did is they used that to build your entire knowledge so the first thing was like how do I split a string in list how do I combine strings in a list and it would just be it' be just a question and then here's what it looks like and this is how it works and that was how you did you know you knew how to do all your cars and your cters and all those others that it did to create these really complicated things and it started very basic and I've seen some other books along the way that are sort of like that they're more like a a problem solving guide with JavaScript or something like that and those are the things that one there's some great books and and tutorial paths out there two this is another thing where you can where AI does become interesting is because you can just ask AI how do I do x with why and then use that and then go do it like definitely test it don't just take it and say oh now I know because you don't know but take that run it go run that code and you're going to find probably a different way of doing it you may find a new library you may find a something that's different because they're on a different version there's a lot of stuff that can come out of that and that that whole Academia side of it because it really does count down to it's like we're trying to ask oursel we're trying to push ourselves and that's really what you get is it's like you you don't know what you don't know and so this is where you have to like you have to stretch a little bit and get okay where might I not know it where what like what am I usually doing and what are maybe some other other applications out there where I'm not using it or as Michael said some you're going to find something that's like a tangential technology so there are and there's a lot if you're doing web applications that's a great one where maybe you're doing a you're building a Java web application but one of the things you want to do is you want to get better at the front end stuff so maybe you spend some time within that and you start playing around a little bit like maybe you go and understand how CSS and and those classes work a little bit better or maybe you go into JavaScript and you look a little bit more like well what if I instead of using the back end did this on the front end what would that look like those kinds of things are really going to help you grow and I'm going to toss that back to you because it looks like you've had some that sparked a couple ideas on your side as well yeah so I don't want to get too far off topic but one of the big things that comes to mind when you get kind of in these ruts or kind of very comfortable do code reviews look at what you're doing and instead of asking AI can you write your own code generators to generate some of your project template boilerplate code for you to jump start your next project or to even streamline your current project these are great ways to figure out best practices or even current practices if technology has changed in the last decade or even a year from when you started the flip side of that and a little selfless plug here is testing take your code if you're not writing testing start thinking about user stories and how you're writing the code how is the code being built um you know if you think of the stories for how it's being built if you're just writing code all the time take a step back and try to write the user story flow or the project flow for the entire project start at the beginning go to the end you may never have been through that process and that is a great learning experience not only to understand what it it is that your application is doing what it is you're doing but also all the different layers involved with the software development of that application so you may even like Peak Interest in oh I like software requirements ging oh maybe I'll be a project manager or I like being a business owner a manager you see all that by going through this process because you might even be in a rut you might not necessarily be comfortable but you're bored or you're kind of in a rut and you're like ah I don't know if this is for me look at doing something like that it might reinvigorate you in the current field or even in the company you're at to go hey okay now if I go learn like project development or software requirements Gathering now I can kind of pivot or move into a different direction within my field and that really is besides moving off of your Plateau because you want to become a better developer I think that is another thing is that you don't want to get you don't want to get bored you don't want to get too comfortable where you're at because that is not you're not going to be growing in that situation if you sort of if you Coast if you're in a rut you're not you're probably not moving forward if you're coasting you're probably not growing and if you're not growing unfortunately you're dying because that's just that's the way technology is there is always going to be there's new libraries there's new versions there's new features there's new Services there's new environments there's new everything out there and every time there's a new technology there's probably a new way to make maybe look at integrating with that working with that leveraging that and so those are the things that besides just growing in a technology I think are going to help us we so we can grow more broadly and honestly continue to be excited every day when we we start work hopefully this has excited you enough that you send us an email info developer.com let us know what you're thinking about what you like what you don't like what are some of the topics you would like to hear from us what are some questions you have what are some good and bad things that have happened to you we're happy to share and hear about it and all that goodness we are wrapping up soon this season and we will be jumping into season 23 which is just again every time I think about how far we've gone with this is crazy I think we're gonna be topping I think in the next season we'll be topping episode 800 you know we're just like we're cruising along here and but we would love to have feedback from you guys uh you can leave us comments here you can leave them whether here is on YouTube or whether it's out wherever you whether you get your wherever you get your podcast uh out on X you can see follow us at develop andur you can give us uh we have contact forms on developer.com you can check out school. developer.com and you can check out some of the courses we have and some of the places that we have gone a little deeper these are some of the things that we've you know Michael talked about where we've moved off of that plateau and explored some of the things that we can do to help you guys as well as ourselves as always go out there and have have yourself a great day a great week and we will talk to you next time bonus material what you got daa for visual age I actually taught that it was I think that was the I think that was the language that killed visual age I remember it like got there and then not too long after that it died but that was when you what they did was they ripped out all the UI stuff moved that to the web sphere and then opened towards the Bas is Eclipse yep yeah basically it like split into a couple different things uh at the time but yeah that was those are the hey days when when Java first came out that first I can't remember it six months maybe a year and like everybody in their brother had an IDE for Java there was like all these say some of them really cool and some of them really sucked but there's also you know IDs have come a long way in that gosh it's been 30 years I guess now basically you're talking like mid 90s um yeah visual age was actually an interesting one we we were one of the big buyers that company I was talking about they were one of the big buyers into Java we had visual age for Java the only problem is it was slow as Christmas it was so painfully slow to get anything done with it and we use V we had visual age Small Talk visual age um Java and visual age C++ I think those are the three that we had and the C C++ one was actually sort of quick but the other two it was neat like I always love Small Talk pure objectoriented it was really cool but H the visual age stuff just sucked it was just way way way way too slow so yeah bonus everybody go like you want to go Google that that's probably out there somewhere uh yeah it's sort of interesting how it did grow into sort of like split into web sphere and uh eclipse and there it's still out there somewhere there's uh I can't they had another version of that sort of popped up for a little bit and then disappeared again that was they call I think they did call it visual age for like j2e or something like that and then it died a horrible death because eclipse and and some of the eclipse variants were so much better and still are really well I think IBM still owns that so that might be a part of the web Studio or web sphere Studio that you buy with them because I know give that away with the as 400s or I series now you actually get the full development Suite if you have an i series and uh I think it just comes with that otherwise you got to pay for it I will say this though if you had burlin uh jbuilder yeah that was probably the best UI tool kit for building desktop applications because it actually had the uh the no um the no grid so you could actually put components wherever the hell you wanted to it wasn't center right so that was awesome um I built my first couple of of java and desktop desktop apps on jbuilder that was uh I think that was the thing that it that was what I was on for a long time until Eclipse came around and I got sold on Eclipse yeah and if you do a lot J development you might like inell J eclipse is still out there but I'll tell you the spring uh STS Eclipse build is probably the most stable and if you do a lot of spring I recommend that uh I've tried it with intellig intell has some nice bells and whistles but it doesn't play nice with a lot of the spring libraries um but I'm dabbling in visual code still same kind of thing uh honestly if you are a pure Java developer look at eclipse look at Spring and intellig is great for those of you uh because I guess that's what they're teaching in college these days so um those are kind of like the top three tiers I do like Eclipse because it has all these plugins in the marketplace you can pretty much do almost anything you want in Eclipse kind of like notepad++ or even a lot of the command line interface utilities that come with Linux so it it it's one of those where it's kind of a Swiss army knife if you need it or it can be plain vanilla if you need it to be plain vanilla and that's where I've got like Visual Studio code has grown to that it used to not be there but especially the last few years U I seen it's I literally I did a a course for some of the guys we did building our own better developers in our in our company earlier today where we were just we were just walking through Visual Studio code uh there's some other tools out there that are that are really good like the jet brains tools and stuff like that but just using it free plugins or and extensions that they've got um it is amazing what you can get out of those things and it's and it's honestly Visual Studio code is really lightweight um so it's become one that I use if I'm not going to use a paid IDE which I've got a a couple of those if I'm if I'm heavy in something then I'm using like a pro version of an ID if it's something else I I'll use Visual Studio code particularly if it's like things that I don't you know that I'm in here and there like I may use it to do especially like you know HTML and JavaScript or if I'm in doing some sort of a uh command line you know scripting language or something like that it's you're going to find a plugin for it it's really good Eclipse does have those um It's just sometimes you end up getting with it a little bit you know big in fat eclipse and I like Michael said if you just if you're doing spring development I would use their the spring STS uh that's I don't even do the plugins I just go straight to their version of eclipse and then go from there that being said I think we'll wrap this one up there's some like weird bonus stuff that was a little off topic but you have that as always there's so many ways to contact us bonus material like super secret stuff for you guys next episode next episode next season we're going to talk about like how to be a better developer it's going to be each episode and I think we already decided on it if not sorry Mike we just decided on it each episode is going to be something actionable like a a challenge or something along those lines of like here's some things you can do to become a better developer all these little things it's G to be things that he does that I do and it's going to be things that you do if you guys want to send us something and send us an information you know send us something at info developer.com leave us some comments or something like that however you want to reach out we would love to hear from you as well what are some of the the tips the tricks the tactics that you use to become a better developer and we're going to probably you know we're going to find ways to turn these into challenges and sort of gamify it a little bit but that's what are that's what's coming up next and the you know the next season and you know it's probably 8 10 episodes something like that but I want to throw that out there as sort of like like super secret extra bonus material for you so go think about that and then come back here in a couple days and check us out for the next episode have yourself a great day and we'll talk to you next time [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
okay this time I'm recording I can't
even cck record these days hi everybody
we're back um last episode series of
stuff uh we're working on like what were
we it was like requirements Gathering we
were talking about how to do those a
little better how to make the most use
of time and such I am vamping while I'm
trying to find our podcast ideas I think
we had a couple of good
ones uh oh that was one those are for
the next season which those would be
good we talked about scope
creep little bit go ahead well we did uh
defining dun and agile and supercharger
Focus yep we did Focus let's see which
is basically dealing with an
overwhelming
task uh did we have anything that jumped
out or do you have anything
that's jumps out at you uh otherwise I
think I've got one to give us a start
not offhand uh other than like I was
thinking through the problem solving
stuff that we did again and I was really
thinking you know after we kind of
looked at some of the data stuff and
requirements the other day I was looking
at and thinking you know this is like
the scientific method writing code is
pretty much trial and er you you have an
idea you write code you spit it out
test and it you know it really does
follow that scientific method for some
reason that just kind of stuck in my
head uh the last day or two uh I don't
know if it's really worth the topic but
it's just one of those where ways to
kind of break it down not necessarily
just the sdlc or stlc but just how to
analyze walk through the pro I know
we've talked about it a lot and we may
have talked through it to death for this
season but it's something you know maybe
we can bring it back up next season yeah
I'm trying to figure out if we would
do how we would do that one um but
that's actually the idea I had was a
little bit getting into sort of like a
maybe a precursor into what we would do
next season anyways which was more of
a yeah I'm trying to because it was
really was getting into like doing it's
almost like having a daily challenge or
something like that it's just microw
ways to get better and we've talked
about that a lot um but it's one I don't
think I have and it was more the idea of
like challenge yourself to it's really
like learn something new every day and
it's
really I that I think that's where I
want to go with that was let's see is
it's a little bit of I don't think we've
covered this one yet in this season or
maybe in the past that we've spent that
much time it's how do you when you're in
a remote environment when you're doing a
remote job in particular or doing a A
solopreneur or something like that we
have a team around you it's like how do
you get better how do you you because a
lot of people it's like there's one
thing it's like hey I can go learn a pro
I can learn a programming language but
learning it the right way or the best
way usually takes more than just like
you know reading something or like I can
hey I can hammer out some problems in
this it gets a little bit more into what
are best best practices how do I find
best pra practices um it does go back to
the things that we have sort of had is
like a recurring theme things like
static code analysis and some of those
kinds of things or going to like OAS or
some of those places but it's also like
how do
I how do I grow how do I go from okay I
know this to now I'm doing it better or
doing it right some of the sources for
that and that was I say say it is
a i it's say it's a becoming a better
developer and it's something that's
really probably not as much an issue
when you're early on because you're just
drinking from the fire hose there's
always something new but there is that
point like how do you get off the
plateau once you've plateaued now what
do you
do yeah and since we're I think this is
episode 23 so this would be a good point
to kind of cover that because we're kind
of from the intro you know beginning of
the journey the mid level we've touched
on
some closer to the end tasks this is
kind of one like continuing to grow kind
of
thing I like that okay then we'll figure
it out how this works well hello and
welcome back we are continuing a season
where we are going through the developer
Journey we are building better
developers we are develop andur I am Rob
Broadhead I'm one of the founders of
develop andur I'm also a founder of RB
Consulting where we do we help you with
technology sprawl and all the pain
regarding that so we help you to
automate we help you to simplify we help
you to integrate all your systems to get
that big thing you have down into a nice
lean clean machine that allows you to
just get your job done and not worry
about the
technology going with our sort of newish
thing that we've got with a good thing
bad thing I think I'll go ahead and
throw mine out there real quick good
thing is my youngest kids moved out of
the house this weekend and we helped
them move along with that was a bad
thing because the first thing we did is
we rented a trailer and when we got
there we did not have the right size
hitch so somebody had to go back and get
the ball of bag of hitches basically so
we can get the right size hitch for the
trailer so moral of the story is either
check beforehand or bring your bag big
bag of stuff because you never know
actually you do know if you don't bring
it you will need something in the bag if
you don't bring it I mean if you do
bring it then you probably are fine so
you might as well go that route on the
other side that's got his big bag of
tricks and so much more is Mike if you
can go ahead and introduce yourself hey
everyone my name is Michael malash I'm
one of the co-founders of developer ner
building better Developers I'm also the
founder of Envision QA where we take
test driven development and apply it to
help small to midsize businesses and
clinicians build software with testing
in my to reduce the cost of software
development good and bad good I finally
fixed the two uh Gates we've had on the
farm for the last four years um I had to
run um had to get all the parts for it
uh the bad news is I had to make
multiple trips to Lowe's to get multiple
Parts because I either didn't have the
right clip or the wrong s little clip
was too big or too small for the um
little adapters to get the tension wire
right yeah short followup to that when
my oldest moved into his house first
time he got a house and moved into that
that was he knew he was truly adulting
and that first weekend when we were
moving him in he had like 10 trips to
Lowe's that day he just kept going back
it was like oh I need to get this I need
to get that I need to get he's like wow
I have never been I've like almost never
been to this store and now he's been
there like we told him like you're going
to be there a lot just trust me moving
on this episode we're going to talk
about like basically it's a getting off
of the plateau it's growing off of a
plateau and it's really it really is
where we have these situations where we
particular we early on either in our
career or learning language or a new
environment you sort of we'll call it
you drink from the fire host you're just
like learning learning learning learning
learning every time you get in there
there's something new you're learning
you're getting better you're getting
better at some point you sort of plateau
you're comfortable with it and you can
use it and maybe you're even a you know
what they would call like a power user
or something like that or very you know
a accomplished developer because you
have a long you know list of things that
you can solve with that tool but maybe
you're not uh a guru or an expert or
something because you you maybe you
self-taught or you've had a couple of
lessons or you know a couple class CL es
maybe you've gotten some sort of a
certification or something like that but
not really like truly master that skill
or technology and that's where I want to
talk about today is so what happens when
you find yourself in that
plateau and what are some ways that we
can do that now one of them I've already
mentioned is certifications I have found
certifications very often particularly
when there's a uh we'll say like a
family or a series of certifications
within a technology those are very
helpful yes it's great on paper and you
can say hey I'm certified and blah blah
blah but in a lot of cases going through
the process to be certified is in itself
a really good learning opportunity you
may all you probably know some level of
what you're being certified on but then
there's going to be all these details as
an example you can go back to you know
just pumping our pushing our own Goods
but you can go back to some of our prior
stuff we actually have a whole series in
YouTube that is getting a python
certification and in doing so I've been
Python programming for quite a while but
going through the syllabus there were
several things that I just didn't use
very often so it was a really good way
to like explore all the pieces of that
now in
my past experience and and
certifications I will throw out extra
props to the well actually there's two
places one was the Java series of
certifications way way back one of the
things that the certified I think
certified developer was the at the time
or certified architect I can't remember
what it was but short story is the
certification process was a test plus
building an application so they said
this they which walked you through
here's the requirements here's what you
need to do here's some things that you
have to do in part of you know making
this application work so it made sure
that you for examp example your database
was not a database it was a binary store
so you had to be able to work with that
and you had to put data in and pull it
back out things like that those uh
application type certifications are
awesome another one is really anything
I've touched and I haven't gotten all
deep into it but any of the Amazon web
services certifications and there's I
think something like 4.2 billion
different certifications there for all
their services but the certification
process learning it uh understanding the
syllabus even and just walking through
all the features every time I've done
that was it was really an educational
experience so those are great ways to
move off of a a plateau is basically
push yourself to almost go back into the
academic world a little bit through
certifications or maybe you get like a
mastering blah blah language you know
mastering Ruby on Rails or something
like that kind of book and almost read
it like almost page from you know front
to back instead of using it as a
reference or maybe even like if they
have something that's like step one step
two step three learn it in 30 days is
actually go through those and really dig
into the things that you don't use as
much and this could be or or maybe it is
as simple as say I've never used you
know multi-threading in this language I
want to see if I can do that I have
never I don't know done like bit level
Graphics in in this so I want to go try
that if you can think of something
that's a problem you solve somewhere
else then maybe solving that in this new
language will help you grow now the one
other thing I wanted to throw out before
and then I'm going to throw it to
Michael is because we do this all the
time is pointing to the uh you know step
ofto day kind of approach one of the
things you can do with this instead of
you know maybe having a side project or
going into certification is just it's it
goes back to almost like a personal code
review take a look at stuff that you've
done in that language pick a a function
a class or something like that and then
review it with an eye towards is there a
possibility that I could do this
differently and it may be as simple as
take that piece of code and throw it
into like this is actually a good use of
AI or something like take that code and
throw it into you know a chat GPT or
something like that and say how else
what's a different way to write this
code or what would be a better way to
write this code or something along those
lines because what you'll end up finding
often is that you're going to have your
we'll call it your crutch and the the
thing I think of most often is in the
world of java and their collections is
there's a lot of different Collections
and there is a
specific uh strengths and you know
strengths and weaknesses to each of them
but most of us have the one that we fall
back on it's the one that we're most
comfortable with the one that we use the
most often and it may not be the best
and so if it's something you haven't
used very often something like this
where you're going back to that code
review you're pushing maybe you look at
use like a stady code analysis tool or
look up like best practices or something
like that with that language or that
environment then you may find a couple
things that you haven't used and that
will allow you to you know Kick It Up
kick it up a notch basically and maybe
move off of that Plateau now I know I
hit a couple of things sort of lightly
and and maybe the one deeply but now I
want to throw that over you Mike and
what are what are some of the things
that you do and some of the ways that
you move yourself off of that Plateau
Plateau when you find
it so you you I like to how you touched
on certification um you know kind of
self- learning digging into the current
existing technology so I'm going to keep
us in Academia at the moment and kind of
build a little bit off your
certification so I like Rob agree the
certifications are a jumping point to
kind of get you started if you're not
sure where to go within your current
technology or language however I'm not a
huge test taker person so so I don't do
very well with standardized tests it
takes me twice as long to prepare for
those exams however and that's where I'm
going to go with this is keeping it
within
Academia if you want to expand your
knowledge of something or learn
something new go at it in the mindset of
teaching it to someone so a lot of the
ways where I learned something new and I
did this a lot over the last decade or
so is is if I needed a skill or I wanted
to expand a skill I would either start
writing courses to try to teach myself
how to do this right like how is this
actually done so I kind of went in with
that uh Biblical reference mindset where
I did all my research on the particular
topic then I tried to present it in a
way that I could actually explain it to
someone it's harder than you think to
take something you've done for 20 years
and try to teach it to someone that's
when you really start getting into those
details of well I know how to do this
but why am I doing this and sometimes
that why gets you into areas where oh
well this is actually better let me go
learn this and then you find it's
peeling back that onion it's like oh
every time you find something new it
triggers something else you can go in a
different direction now that that has
allowed me to write boot camps and
training materials
but what the other thing is that this
has led me to do is being the
entrepreneurial mindset that I am is
there are times where it's like I am
very good at writing software I'm very
good at Building
Systems however I may not know
JavaScript really well I do but say
we'll take JavaScript as an example so
it's been you know a while since I've
got dip my toe in JavaScript but say I
wanted to go do something with a newer
JavaScript script Library the other
thing you can do is go find a job on
like freelancer.com or one of these
other sites find something a project a
topic an idea in that technology that
kind of is you know linear or parallel
to your path but pushes you to go learn
something new doing what you're doing
today and you can build your skill set
not only that but you may fig find out
that this is a better technology so
maybe I need to start shifting my skill
set over to this getting me out of this
comfort zone and continuously pushing me
forward now there's pros and cons to
both of those but again if you're not
kind of that outgoing person the
certifications might be a better way to
go about it however if you are more
outgoing finding jobs or finding
projects or the one thing we haven't
touched on are hackathons you know
different communities and areas they do
have hackathons it's where you go in and
you kind of join as a team or an
individual they give you some problems
and you try to work through them in a
limited time set now you don't have to
go to these groups you can do them
personally you can go find online little
hackathon topics but that's another way
to kind of jumpstart your mindset as to
where do you want to go with this kernal
technology or just push yourself to see
what you can really do without having to
sit there with AI or Google all day to
try trying to assist you with your
coding now there's a there's a couple of
great ideas that came out of that I'm
glad that you you put it that way um
first one is back many many years ago
one of I was at a consulting company
that actually no longer exists um and
one of the things that they came up with
was it wasn't I don't think it was paid
or anything like that but what they
would do is if there was a new
technology out there and this is long
ago long enough ago that like the new
technology there was was like Del
and the small talk uh it was visual age
I think it was IBM's series of of idees
and this is really this like this goes
back this is before Java um and one of
the things they would do is they'd say
hey we will get this is you know how the
company sort of rewarded you is they say
hey we'll get you the you know the
Enterprise version of that tool and then
what you'll do is you take it and you
build a tutorial exactly like Michael
said and it usually the way it was up is
we sort of had a it's really a template
of you want something that highlights
the strengths of the of the applica of
the environment but then it's something
that's moderately useful so it was
usually something along the lines of
like maybe a little uh you know a little
a miniature like a low-end CRM
application or something like that where
it's just like I want to track some data
and it's usually it's like hey so I can
connect to a database I can pull data
out I can do some you know basic
interaction with that I can do some
modification I can display stuff maybe
do a report you know have a reporting
tool or something like that but one of
the things that we did with this these
were all uh at the day back in the day
this is when they were all desktop
applications and one of the things that
we would do is it would be walking
through the polishing side of it so it
would be things like going through and
making sure all the help like the micro
help showed up and making sure tab
orders are right and all these things
that you
can you sort of forget about if
depending on where you're at in an
application so it really did get in some
of the nitty-gritty details that
depending on what you do helps you you
know round out your skills another thing
that it reminded me of as Michael was
talking about is there's a thing called
uh it's called the little
lisper it was a way to learn the lisp
programming language and the way they
presented it was they started with it
was always a question how do I do X in
lisp and they what they did is they used
that to build your entire knowledge so
the first thing was like how do I split
a string in list how do I combine
strings in a list and it would just be
it' be just a question and then here's
what it looks like and this is how it
works and that was how you did you know
you knew how to do all your cars and
your cters and all those others that it
did to create these really complicated
things and it started very basic and
I've seen some other books along the way
that are sort of like that they're more
like a a problem solving guide with
JavaScript or something like that and
those are the things that one there's
some great books and and tutorial paths
out there two this is another thing
where you can where AI does become
interesting is because you can just ask
AI how do I do x with why and then use
that and then go do it like definitely
test it don't just take it and say oh
now I know because you don't know but
take that run it go run that code and
you're going to find probably a
different way of doing it you may find a
new library you may find a something
that's different because they're on a
different version there's a lot of stuff
that can come out of that and that that
whole Academia side of it because it
really does count down to it's like
we're trying to ask oursel we're trying
to push ourselves and that's really what
you get is it's like you you don't know
what you don't know and so this is where
you have to like you have to stretch a
little bit and get okay where might I
not know it where what like what am I
usually doing and what are maybe some
other other applications out there where
I'm not using it or as Michael said some
you're going to find something that's
like a tangential
technology so there are and there's a
lot if you're doing web applications
that's a great one where maybe you're
doing a you're building a Java web
application but one of the things you
want to do is you want to get better at
the front end stuff so maybe you spend
some time within that and you start
playing around a little bit like maybe
you go and understand how CSS and and
those classes work a little bit better
or maybe you go into JavaScript and you
look a little bit more like well what if
I instead of using the back end did this
on the front end what would that look
like those kinds of things are really
going to help you grow and I'm going to
toss that back to you because it looks
like you've had some that sparked a
couple ideas on your side as well yeah
so I don't want to get too far off topic
but one of the big things that comes to
mind when you get kind of in these ruts
or kind of very
comfortable do code reviews look at what
you're doing and instead of asking AI
can you write your own code generators
to generate some of your project
template boilerplate code for you to
jump start your next project or to even
streamline your current project these
are great ways to figure out best
practices or even current practices if
technology has changed in the last
decade or even a year from when you
started the flip side of that and a
little selfless plug here is testing
take your code if you're not writing
testing start thinking about user
stories and how you're writing the code
how is the code being
built um you know if you think of the
stories for how it's being built if
you're just writing code all the time
take a step back and try to write the
user story flow or the project flow for
the entire project start at the
beginning go to the end you may never
have been through that process and that
is a great learning experience not only
to understand what it it is that your
application is doing what it is you're
doing but also all the different layers
involved with the software development
of that application so you may even like
Peak Interest in oh I like software
requirements ging oh maybe I'll be a
project manager or I like being a
business owner a manager you see all
that by going through this process
because you might even be in a rut you
might not necessarily be comfortable but
you're bored or you're kind of in a rut
and you're like ah I don't know if this
is for me look at doing something like
that it might reinvigorate you in the
current field or even in the company
you're at to go hey okay now if I go
learn like project development or
software requirements Gathering now I
can kind of pivot or move into a
different direction within my
field and that really is besides moving
off of your Plateau because you want to
become a better developer I think that
is another thing is that you don't want
to get you don't want to get bored you
don't want to get too comfortable where
you're at because that is not you're not
going to be growing in that situation if
you sort of if you Coast if you're in a
rut you're not you're probably not
moving forward if you're coasting you're
probably not growing and if you're not
growing unfortunately you're dying
because that's just that's the way
technology is there is always going to
be there's new libraries there's new
versions there's new features there's
new Services there's new environments
there's new everything out there and
every time there's a new technology
there's probably a new way to make maybe
look at integrating with that working
with that leveraging that and so those
are the things that besides just growing
in a technology I think are going to
help us we so we can grow more broadly
and honestly continue to be excited
every day when we we start work
hopefully this has excited you enough
that you send us an email info
developer.com let us know what you're
thinking about what you like what you
don't like what are some of the topics
you would like to hear from us what are
some questions you have what are some
good and bad things that have happened
to you we're happy to share and hear
about it and all that goodness we are
wrapping up soon this season and we will
be jumping into season 23 which is just
again every time I think about how far
we've gone with this is crazy I think
we're gonna be topping I think in the
next season we'll be topping episode 800
you know we're just like we're cruising
along here and but we would love to have
feedback from you guys uh you can leave
us comments here you can leave them
whether here is on YouTube or whether
it's out wherever you whether you get
your wherever you get your podcast uh
out on X you can see follow us at
develop andur you can give us uh we have
contact forms on developer.com you can
check out school. developer.com and you
can check out some of the courses we
have and some of the places that we have
gone a little deeper these are some of
the things that we've you know Michael
talked about where we've moved off of
that plateau and explored some of the
things that we can do to help you guys
as well as
ourselves as always go out there and
have have yourself a great day a great
week and we will talk to you next time
bonus
material what you got daa for visual age
I actually taught
that it was I think that was the I think
that was the language that killed visual
age I remember it like got there and
then not too long after
that it died but that was when you what
they did was they ripped out all the UI
stuff moved that to the web sphere and
then opened towards the Bas is Eclipse
yep yeah basically it like split into a
couple different things uh at the time
but yeah that was those are the hey days
when when Java first came out that first
I can't remember it six months maybe a
year and like everybody in their brother
had an IDE for Java there was like all
these say some of them really cool and
some of them really sucked but there's
also you know IDs have come a long way
in that gosh it's been 30 years I guess
now basically you're talking like mid
90s
um yeah visual age was actually an
interesting one we we were one of the
big buyers that company I was talking
about they were one of the big buyers
into Java we had visual age for Java the
only problem is it was slow as Christmas
it was so painfully slow to get anything
done with it and we use V we had visual
age Small Talk visual age um Java and
visual age
C++ I think those are the three that we
had and the C C++ one was actually sort
of quick but the other two it was neat
like I always love Small Talk pure
objectoriented it was really cool but H
the visual age stuff just sucked it was
just way way way way too slow so yeah
bonus everybody go like you want to go
Google that that's probably out there
somewhere uh yeah it's sort of
interesting how it did grow into sort of
like split into web sphere and uh
eclipse and there it's still out there
somewhere there's uh I can't they had
another version of that sort of popped
up for a little bit and then disappeared
again that was they call I think they
did call it visual age for like j2e or
something like that and then it died a
horrible death because eclipse and and
some of the eclipse variants were so
much better and still are really well I
think IBM still owns that so that might
be a part of the web Studio or web
sphere Studio that you buy with them
because I know give that away with the
as 400s or I series now you actually get
the full development Suite if you have
an i series and uh I think it just comes
with that otherwise you got to pay for
it I will say this though if you had
burlin uh jbuilder yeah that was
probably the best UI tool kit for
building desktop applications because it
actually had the uh the
no um the no grid so you could actually
put components wherever the hell you
wanted to it wasn't center right so that
was awesome um I built my first couple
of of java and desktop desktop apps on
jbuilder that was uh I think that was
the thing that it that was what I was on
for a long time until Eclipse came
around and I got sold on
Eclipse yeah and if you do a lot J
development you might like inell J
eclipse is still out there but I'll tell
you the spring uh STS Eclipse build is
probably the most stable and if you do a
lot of spring I recommend that uh I've
tried it with
intellig intell has some nice bells and
whistles but it doesn't play nice with a
lot of the spring libraries um but I'm
dabbling in visual code still same kind
of thing uh
honestly if you are a pure Java
developer look at eclipse look at Spring
and intellig is great for those of you
uh because I guess that's what they're
teaching in college these days so um
those are kind of like the top three
tiers I do like Eclipse because it has
all these plugins in the marketplace you
can pretty much do almost anything you
want in Eclipse kind of like notepad++
or even a lot of the command line
interface utilities that come with Linux
so it it it's one of those where it's
kind of a Swiss army knife if you need
it or it can be plain vanilla if you
need it to be plain vanilla and that's
where I've got like Visual Studio code
has grown to that it used to not be
there but especially the last few years
U I seen it's I literally I did a a
course for some of the guys we did
building our own better developers in
our in our company earlier today where
we were just we were just walking
through Visual Studio code uh there's
some other tools out there that are that
are really good like the jet brains
tools and stuff like that but just using
it free plugins or and extensions that
they've got um it is amazing what you
can get out of those things and it's and
it's honestly Visual Studio code is
really lightweight um so it's become one
that I use if I'm not going to use a
paid IDE which I've got a a couple of
those if I'm if I'm heavy in something
then I'm using like a pro version of an
ID if it's something else I I'll use
Visual Studio code particularly if it's
like things that I don't you know that
I'm in here and there like I may use it
to do especially like you know HTML and
JavaScript or if I'm in doing some sort
of a uh command line you know scripting
language or something like that it's
you're going to find a plugin for it
it's really good Eclipse does have those
um It's just sometimes you end up
getting with it a little bit you know
big in fat eclipse and I like Michael
said if you just if you're doing spring
development I would use their the spring
STS uh that's I don't even do the
plugins I just go straight to their
version of eclipse and then go from
there that being said I think we'll wrap
this one up there's some like weird
bonus stuff that was a little off topic
but you have that as always there's so
many ways to contact us bonus material
like super secret stuff for you guys
next episode next episode next season
we're going to talk about like how to be
a better developer it's going to be each
episode and I think we already decided
on it if not sorry Mike we just decided
on it each episode is going to be
something actionable like a a challenge
or something along those lines of like
here's some things you can do to become
a better developer all these little
things it's G to be things that he does
that I do and it's going to be things
that you do if you guys want to send us
something and send us an information you
know send us something at info
developer.com leave us some comments or
something like that however you want to
reach out
we would love to hear from you as well
what are some of the the tips the tricks
the tactics that you use to become a
better developer and we're going to
probably you know we're going to find
ways to turn these into challenges and
sort of gamify it a little bit but
that's what are that's what's coming up
next and the you know the next season
and you know it's probably 8 10 episodes
something like that but I want to throw
that out there as sort of like like
super secret extra bonus material for
you so go think about that and then come
back here in a couple days and check us
out for the next episode have yourself a
great day and we'll talk to you next
time
[Music]