I recently saw this tweet:

This is not the first time someone is delivering the Real Developer ™ ID cards, so to say, by deciding what are the traits that tell apart the real deal from all the imposters, noobs, hobbyists, junior, wannabes…

If you listen to them, a real developer…

• never uses the mosue
• does not need to search on google
• does everything on the terminal
• always uses dark mode
• programs on their free time
• contributes to opensource
• speaks at events
• uses Linux
• only has technical hobbies

Did you ever heard any of these stupid statements? Then I am sorry. I apologize on behalf of the poor soul that felt so lost and insecure that they needed to link their aspirational status with any of these incidental characteristics of their particular journey.

Software is a vast field, with thousands of practices and applications. Some people consider it a form of engineering, some others consider it a creative or even artistic pursuit. And there is not even agreement on that.

I have been writing software for more than twenty years now, I am sure I can still fail 90% of these purity tests. If you do too, don’t worry, we can be fake developers together :-)

There are, however some beliefs I have about this whole programming thing that I would like to share with you.

There is no supreme tool

You are not going to eventually discover the bes Language, Framework, editor or whatever else, that beats everything else forever and is the last thing to learn.

Tools are good for some problems and bad for others, some ar good at building custom business logic very fast, but bad at scaling horizontally. A social network and a trading bot are very different beasts.

Sometimes a smaller hammer is best. Humans have built cars that make over 1200km/h, yet no one would think of taking one to go pick up the groceries.

Sometimes a tool you don’t know may be better at solving your current problem than the ones you know… but it will still be easier to solve the problem with the known but suboptimal tool than taking the time to master the best tool, or trying to use it without the proper training.

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
– Arthur Ashe

There is not one way

I have come across a lot of great developers during mi years working in the field. Some had started very young, others did not ever got interested until later in some other career. Some went to college for CS degrees, others did not attend university at all. Some felt a strong passion for technology, some only used technology as a mean to fulfill their real goals.

How you come into technology does not define how good you can be. Programming, as well as many of the related skills, such as system administration, database design, debugging… they are just skills. as such, they can be learnt by anyone with a brain, time to practice and source materials to refer to. Mentoring helps, having used computers since childhood, a mathematical background or deep linguistic abstraction… are all advantages. All can empower you but their absence can be outweigh with time and effort.
There is help

You may find some unfriendly people along the way, but that is not all that there is. The advent of the internet has lowered the barrier to gather with a million strangers who are walking, or did walk, similiar paths to yours, and many are kind enough to share what they can to make the path smother for whoever comes after.

I learnt how to program in the nineties, with books, little to none in the area of forums and living online communities existed, and those who did I did not know about. I wish this upon no one. Things are better now, Google and StackOverflow, Youtube even Twitter, offer you access to an army of friendly hands. Use it. Suffering will not make you harder or stronger, just temporarily sadder.