Being An Eternal Learner
The tech industry is huge, it’s an universe of programming languages, frameworks, methodologies, approaches and humans of all kinds. Reaching total knowledge of it is virtually impossible and honestly nonsense. Our lifetime will be never enough to learn everything, our existence and resources are limited and based on that, we need to focus in what we need.
Sherlock Holmes was pretty well know for being a master in his knowledge area, he claimed not needing to know if Earth was flat or a globe, neither other aspects of astronomy, he just needed to know what was most important to be a great detective, the best of all. That’s an interesting approach.
But Mr. Holmes lived in a historic context different from ours. The 21st century is exciting, we’ve got access to universal knowledge, to total information, we have internet! So, today we can learn as much as we want and need.
At this point there is something I really don’t understand: Why is there so many people who learn 2 or 3 programming languages and call themselves “Full Stack Developers” or have 3 years of experience and believe they are “Senior Devs”? What is being a Full Stack Developer? What is being a Senior Dev? This is all about people that wrongly believes knowing a bit makes them great or special, or even the best.
I’ve been programming for 13+ years now. I’m fluent in 10+ programming languages (but studied 25+ over this years) — yes, I had no childhood — . Besides this I don’t consider myself a Full Stack Developer nor a Senior Developer. These terms are being abused. We —for sure — know nothing. We have much to learn compared to what we actually know.
The key to be better in this industry is being an eternal newbie. The key to success in this industry is to be always learning, never stop challenging yourself, never get comfortable, always try new things. And the most important, never ever believe you’re the best or you know more than anyone.
Doing real life projects that challenge your imagination and knowledge is the best way to realize we have much more to learn that what we currently know. Evolving is a way to discover the huge extension of our industry and how it grows everyday.
So please, whether you’re a developer or a lawyer or a doctor (or whatever)…