From a student to a developer

A talk that I gave at FTMK that basically give a general idea about my journey to from a student until I chose to become a software developer.

Transcript

1. STUDENT -> SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
2. WHO AM I? ▸ Azuan @ tokwan ▸ Diploma & degree in UTeM ( BITD ) ▸ Currently working as a software developer in Suria Labs ▸ iOS and Ruby on Rails developer ▸ Sometimes I helped to organise MYCocoaHeads events in KL
3. I HOPE TO MOTIVATE YOU I'm not here to brag
4. WHAT I USED TO DO ▸ Oracle ▸ MySQL ▸ Java SE/EE ▸ SVN WHAT I'M DOING RIGHT NOW ▸ PostgreSQL ▸ Ruby / Rails ▸ Javascript ▸ Objective-C / Swift ▸ Git
5. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BECOME IN 5 YEARS?
6. SO YOU WANT TO BECOME A DEVELOPER? ▸ Front-end developer ▸ Back-end developer ▸ Mobile developer ▸ Full stack developer ▸ DevOps ▸ Data scientist
7. WHICH LANGUAGE? ▸ Java ▸ Php ▸ Ruby ▸ JavaScript ▸ Python ▸ C++ ▸ Swift ▸ R ▸ C#
8. WHICH FRAMEWORK? ▸ Ruby on Rails ▸ Sinatra ▸ JSF ▸ Grails ▸ Laravel ▸ CodeIgniter ▸ ReactiveCocoa ▸ RxSwift
9. WHAT NOW? ▸ Learn all the things? ▸ Go back home and sleep? ▸ Watch more cat videos? ▸ Watch more 'inspirational videos'? ;)
10. THIS IS MY JOURNEY (SO FAR)
11. DIPLOMA - C++ ▸ Learned C++ in first semester ▸ First impression: Wrote so many lines of 'text', all it showed was "Hello World" ▸ I was not impressed ▸ Joined a few programming contests in 2nd year ▸ Because it looks fun ▸ And money
12. ASK When in doubt
13. DIPLOMA - JAVA ▸ Joined Infosys in 2009 ▸ Learned Java / JSF / Oracle /PL/SQL / HTML / Javascript ▸ Met lots of clever people ▸ Was ranked 33 out of 100 ▸ It was awesome
14. DIPLOMA - JAVA ▸ Back to UTeM ▸ I got bored ▸ Assignments are boring ▸ Projects are boring
15. DIPLOMA - JAVA ▸ Started to use more Java ▸ Build desktop apps, write scripts, websites with Java ▸ Use Java instead of C++ in programming contests ▸ Read about Java API, because it helps A LOT in programming contests ▸ Win == money
16. DIPLOMA ▸ What I told my friends ▸ I'm getting married ▸ An arranged marriage ▸ I'll be gone for a week, which I really did
17. DIPLOMA - OBJECTIVE-C ▸ What I really did ▸ Join MDeC iOS program ▸ Learn iOS in 5 days ▸ No place to stay, sleep at mosque
18. DIPLOMA - OBJECTIVE-C ▸ Learned Objective-C ▸ First impression: It's like C and Java just got married ▸ Chris Hong ▸ MIT graduate ▸ I look up to him ▸ Had more fun building mobile app than web application
19. DIPLOMA ▸ Applied for WWDC scholarship, because it's free anyway ▸ Turns out I got it! ▸ Only cover the ticket though ▸ Couldn't join
20. DIPLOMA - REVIEW ▸ C++ is pretty fast ▸ The syntax is a bit confusing sometimes ▸ Java got lots of cool API ▸ Can build web app too ▸ Oracle is big ▸ You can program in the database too
21. DIPLOMA - REVIEW ▸ Objective-C syntax is a bit hard to understand ▸ But learn it more on free time anyway ▸ Because building mobile apps is fun
22. WHAT I SHOULD DITCH ▸ C++ ▸ Java ▸ Oracle ▸ Objective-C WHAT I SHOULD FOCUS ON
23. DEGREE ▸ Chose BITD ▸ I want to understand more about database ▸ I can learn programming on free time
24. DEGREE ▸ Worked as a part time / freelance programmer ▸ Learned to code Php (without Dreamweaver of course) ▸ Learned about frameworks ▸ CodeIgniter (Php) ▸ JSF (Java)
25. DEGREE ▸ Php was okay ▸ But more interested in Java ▸ Shared the same house with my Infosys Java lecturer ▸ More exposure to Java frameworks, ORM, code debugging and technique
26. DEGREE - ANDROID ▸ Learned to build an Android apps ▸ Using Java ▸ Simulator was so slow I can't even ▸ Everything feels slow ▸ Slow
27. DEGREE - WINDOWS PHONE ▸ Tried building a Windows Phone apps ( a game ) ▸ Was my first hackathon ▸ Learned and build a game with 2 strangers in 3 days ▸ Used VB.NET -> C# ▸ The app performance was really great
28. DEGREE - GIT ▸ Learned about Git ▸ I can commit locally! ▸ With SVN, you need to have a centralised server
29. DEGREE ▸ My housemate got a job with a great salary because he is a certified Java developer ▸ Decided to take it as well ▸ Studied for 1 month ▸ Slept 3-5 hours a day ▸ Never studied for so hard in my whole life ▸ It's because I've paid RM300+ for the exam
30. Had to Photoshop the photo, because I rebond my hair.
 It was hilarious
31. DEGREE ▸ Joined more programming contests ▸ Went to KL to join events ▸ Went by bike at 5pm ▸ Went back to Melaka at 1am ▸ Reason? To be inspired ▸ There are lots of great people out there
32. DEGREE ▸ Java was really fun ▸ Android was not ▸ Windows phone was fun too ▸ Learn Ruby on Rails. Was not so sure what's so great about it ▸ I can do web programming, database management ▸ But, I wanted to do iOS
33. DEGREE - BEFORE INTERN ▸ I felt like there were two path ▸ Corporate tech - Java/Oracle ▸ High payment, lots of benefit ▸ More stable ▸ Startup tech - Php/Objective-C ▸ Latest tools and technology ▸ A bit unclear about the path
34. MAYBE NOT? ▸ SVN ▸ Android ▸ Windows Phone ▸ Java web app ▸ Oracle ▸ PL/SQL ▸ Database management ▸ Git ▸ Php ▸ Ruby on Rails ▸ Objective-C ▸ MySQL MAYBE THIS?
35. DEGREE - INTERN ▸ Join Taxi Monger ▸ As an iOS developer ▸ By coincidence, with help from a lecturer ▸ Impressed with startup ecosystem and community ▸ Worked in a great team
36. WORKING ▸ Tried Ruby on Rails again ▸ I was impressed when I finally understand the flow ▸ Decided not to do Php anymore ▸ Javascript is everywhere, but I don't really get it ▸ I can do it. I just don't really understand the language design
37. WHAT TO FOCUS ON ▸ Objective-C ▸ Ruby on Rails ▸ Probably Javascript somewhere in the future
38. WHERE AM I TODAY ▸ Doing Ruby on Rails on daily basis ▸ Or iOS ▸ Or Javascript ▸ Or maybe ReactNative
39. MINASWAN ▸ "Matz is nice and so we are nice" ▸ Ruby creator
40. ON LEARNING ▸ To learn is the first step ▸ Apply what you've learned ▸ Start exploring ▸ Go one step further ▸ How to go further?
41. IOS ▸ Started with Objective-C ▸ Syntax was confusing at first ▸ Mobile and web application are two different things ▸ Gained more confident when apps was live at the App Store
42. IOS ▸ WWDC 2014 ▸ Apple introduced Swift ▸ Took a gamble and just abandoned Objective-C ▸ Swift improved ▸ 1.0 => 1.1 => 1.2 => 2.0 => 2.1 ▸ It was painful
43. IOS ▸ Subscribed to weekly newsletters, join Slack groups, Facebook groups ▸ Getting better with the syntax ▸ Swift libraries are growing, which is good
45. IOS ▸ So what's next? Learn new programming language? ▸ No, please no
46. IOS ▸ Buy books, watch more advance videos about Swift ▸ Learn how the language itself works ▸ New paradigm: ▸ Functional programming in Swift ▸ Reactive programming in Swift ▸ Reactive functional programming in Swift ▸ Test Driven Development (TDD) in iOS
47. DEGREE IS NOT WORTH IT ANYMORE? ▸ If you only go to classes and do assignments/projects ▸ If you are not growing ▸ If you are not self aware of what you're doing ▸ If you don't spend some time get to know lecturers ▸ Not just the ones that teaches you ▸ There are so much things that you can learn from them
48. SO WHICH LANGUAGE / FRAMEWORK SHOULD I LEARN? ▸ Pick 1-2 as your core and be damn good at it ▸ My case: Ruby/Ruby on Rails and Swift ▸ Why? Because I'm having fun when I code in those languages ▸ Just don't try to learn everything. You can't ▸ I repeat, you CAN'T
49. SO WHICH LANGUAGE / FRAMEWORK SHOULD I LEARN? ▸ It's cool if you know 10 languages ▸ But if you've shipped zero product, none of it matters anyway ▸ Learn new ones too, or at least get to know them a little bit ▸ Because it's fun ▸ Also because it forces you to think differently
50. WHAT ELSE? ▸ Find friends, or create a team ▸ Avoid illusory superiority ▸ Can't find one? Try harder. Internet is huge
51. HAVE FUN Whatever it is,
52. LOOK TO THE MASTER, FOLLOW THE MASTER, WALK WITH THE MASTER, SEE THROUGH THE MASTER, BECOME THE MASTER
53. SLACK ▸ I've created a Slack group for FTMK ▸ Main purpose is to talk about tech, or FTMK in general ▸ Students can get to know each other more too ▸ Why not just use Facebook? Because Slack is more like a chatting room rather than a page ▸ Link to register: https://ftmkroom.herokuapp.com