Being a professional developer

Being a professional seems pretty easy. Being a professional developer is just as easy. Well it can be, but is there more to just being "professional”?

This explores the other side of the term "professional" as it is something I have struggled with since being a developer. It is completely subjective and is aimed at getting people thinking (and hopefully discussing).

Transcript

1. whoami Husband Developer Nigel Greenway Father twitter.com/NigelGreenway github.com/NigelGreenway futurepixels.co.uk
2. A Question From me to you
3. Who has had their code laughed at? By someone who was better than you?
4. They just know more than you
5. Being a professional developer
6. What is a professional?
7. -- Google -- “engaged in a specified activity as one's main paid occupation rather than as an amateur.”
8. -- Wikipedia -- “A professional is a member of a profession or any person who earns their living from a specified activity.” “In narrow usage, not all expertise is considered a profession. Although sometimes incorrectly referred to as professions, occupations such as skilled construction and maintenance work are more generally thought of as trades or crafts. A related distinction would be that a professional does mainly mental work, as opposed to engaging in physical work.”
9. What about us?
10. Creativity
11. One of the most consolidated misconceptions about programming, since the early days, is the idea that such activity is purely technical, completely exact in nature, like Math and Physics. Computation is exact, but programming is not. The first is a result of a machine operation, and the latter is still a human activity. -- Erika Heidi --
12. -- Google -- “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness.”
13. A professional developer!? What are we then? Sorted!
14. No Not Quite
15. Behaviour The way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially towards others. -- Google --
16. What is good behaviour?
17. Learning from people instead of thinking you have all of the answers
18. Passing on your knowledge
19. Push others out of their comfort zones
20. Not looking at their code and laughing at it like a funny cat picture
21. Treat others with respect
22. Why should you care?
23. Would you like to be treated any other way?
24. Whoami?
25. Nigel Greenway
26. A husband
27. A father
28. A developer
29. A human I have the potential to have problems at home Financial worries Relationship problems Mental health issues Family problems
30. We are human
31. We are only human
32. -- Cal Evans -- “There is someone out there today that needs your help. Find them. Help them.”
33. Don’t be a douche
34. Be a Professional Developer
35. Questions twitter.com/NigelGreenway github.com/NigelGreenway futurepixels.co.uk