Becoming a Developer; Finding Community

A talk I gave at Queens.js on 3/4/15

Transcript

1. BECOMING A DEVELOPER FINDING COMMUNITY
2. AARON PETCOFF aaronpetcoff.me @_pincheguevara hello@aaronpetcoff.me
3. GOALS • Beat a path for newer developers • Help experienced developers reflect
4. tl;dr Own your curiosity 
 and embrace community
5. WHAT’S GREAT • Vibrant field • We make cool things • The AH-HA moment
6. CHALLENGES • “Inner critic” • Pressure to know everything
7. INNER CRITIC Hypothesis Program only does what we tell it to do Errors remind us of the limitations of the human condition (Existential crisis )
9. PRESSURE TO KNOW EVERYTHING Hypothesis Necessarily interdisciplinary field We want what others have (Eat their brains; gain knowledge )
10. A MESSY COMBINATION Loud inner critic + Pressure to know everything
11. IMPOSTER SYNDROME
12. CONSEQUENCES • Discouragement/Burnout
13. STRATEGIES • Personal • Collective
14. • Be okay with not knowing, yet • Experiment • Give yourself PRAISE • ∞
15. • Request feedback • Gain more familiarity • Teach others • ∞
16. • Test • Write docs • Help bugfix/triage
17. • We’re awesome CONCLUSIONS
18. “Never Heard of It,” Lyza Danger Gardner, A List Apart, Nov. 14, 2013 “Banishing Your Inner Critic,” Denise Jacobs, A List Apart, Sep. 20, 2011 “On Code and Community,” Una Kravets, Sitepoint, Feb. 19, 2015 ARTICLES
19. THANK YOU aaronpetcoff.me @_pincheguevara hello@aaronpetcoff.me