Develpreneur: Become a Better Developer and Entrepreneur Rob Broadhead

Welcome back to episode 2 of Season 22 of our podcast, where two developers discuss the journey from coder to developer. In this episode, we delve into the pivotal moments that transform a person from simply writing code to truly solving problems with technology.


 



Problem-Solving: Journey from Coder to Developer

Our host, Rob, begins by discussing an experience in high school where he participated in a programming competition. Initially, his team, comprising four coders, approached the competition by manually writing code and taking turns typing it into their single computer. Despite their best efforts, they only secured second place. This loss prompted them to rethink their strategy. The following year, they optimized their team by including a fast typist with basic programming knowledge. This shift in strategy allowed them to enter code more efficiently, leading to a decisive victory. This experience highlighted the importance of problem-solving over mere coding—recognizing that the essence of programming competitions, much like real-world development, is solving problems in the most effective way possible.


Embracing the Problem-Solving Mindset in Development

Transitioning from a coder to a developer involves a fundamental change in mindset. It's about moving from writing lines of code to understanding and solving broader problems. The host, Rob, reflects on this journey, emphasizing that the shift happens when one starts thinking about the most efficient ways to solve problems rather than just coding for coding's sake. This concept aligns with modern methodologies like test-driven development, which focuses on defining the problem and then writing the code to solve it.


From Coding to Problem-Solving: A Developer's Journey

Michael shares a different yet similar journey. Initially pursuing a career in medicine, he found himself using early forms of programming to solve practical problems in his job at a campus infirmary. By automating inventory tracking using Excel and later Access, he realized the potential of programming to streamline and enhance processes. Despite his initial career aspirations, his pivot to software development was driven by a passion for solving problems and improving efficiency through technology.


Becoming a Developer: The Power of Problem-Solving

Michael and Rob agree that the journey from coder to developer is marked by the realization that technology's true power lies in its ability to solve problems, not just in writing code. They discuss how many developers start in constrained environments like spreadsheets or specific applications and eventually break free from these constraints by learning new tools and languages. This journey is not about mastering every programming language but about becoming adept at identifying problems and using the best tools to solve them.


Problem-Solving Strategies on the Developer Journey

The hosts offer practical advice for those on their own journeys from coder to developer:


Expand Your Toolset: Continuously learn new languages and tools to increase your ability to solve various problems.

Focus on Problem-Solving: Shift your mindset from writing code to solving problems. Ask yourself, "What is the best way to solve this problem?" rather than "How can I write this code?"

Leverage Existing Solutions: Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use existing tools and technologies to solve problems more efficiently.

Start Small: Sometimes, the best solution is the simplest one. Start with basic tools and gradually move to more complex solutions as needed.

Embrace the Process: Understand that becoming a developer is a journey. Each problem you solve, and each new tool you learn is a step forward.


Closing Thoughts

The episode wraps up with a reminder that being a better developer is not just about writing code—it's about solving problems effectively. By focusing on problem-solving, continu

Hello, and welcome to Season 22 of our podcast! As we dive into this new season, we’re excited to embark on a journey that explores the path of becoming and evolving as developers. This season is dedicated to the developer journey, focusing on the steps and lessons contributing to building a better developer. Whether you're just starting or looking to enhance your existing skills, this season has something for everyone.


The Developer Journey

This season is all about the various routes one can take to become a developer and the steps to improve continually. We'll cover foundational skills, necessary certifications, and how to build a solid resume. Becoming a developer can start with a computer science degree, a coding boot camp, or a career switch from a different field. Regardless of where you start, every developer faces typical milestones and challenges.






Building a Strong Foundation for Your Developer Journey

A strong foundation is crucial in the developer journey. We'll delve into the basics every developer should know, such as understanding collections, patterns, and logical arithmetic. These fundamentals are essential whether you're writing code for the first time or revisiting concepts after years of experience. These core principles remain relevant and necessary for growth as technology evolves.


Evolving Skill Sets and Staying Relevant

Technology is always changing, and developers must adapt to stay relevant. We'll discuss how to update your skills and resume to reflect current trends and technologies. For instance, skills that were cutting-edge a decade ago, like Flash or Adobe Air, might now be obsolete. It’s essential to keep your skill set current, whether learning new languages like Java or .NET or gaining proficiency in modern frameworks and tools.


Handling Career Transitions

Career transitions are a natural part of the developer journey. We'll explore when and how to make these transitions, whether moving into management, higher-end architecture, or a completely new area within tech. We'll also discuss how to identify when you’re in a rut, and it’s time to seek new opportunities, whether within your current company or elsewhere.


Lessons Learned and Personal Experiences from the Host's Developer Journey

Throughout this season, we’ll share personal experiences and lessons learned. Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche bring years of experience in development, consulting, and software testing. They will provide insights from their journeys, including challenges and successes. Their goal is to offer valuable advice and practical tips to help you navigate your path.


The Importance of Adaptability

Adaptability is key in a developer’s career. As new tools and technologies emerge, applying them to every problem is tempting. However, balancing excitement for new tools with practical application is crucial. We’ll discuss effectively integrating new technologies into your workflow without misusing them.


Continuous Learning and Improvement

The developer journey is one of continuous learning and improvement. This season aims to provide you with wisdom and actionable advice you can apply daily. From foundational skills to advanced concepts, we hope to equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to become a better developer.


Embrace Your Developer Journey

As we kick off Season 22, we’re excited to delve into the developer journey and explore the many facets of becoming and growing as a developer. Whether you’re just starting or have decades of experience, there’s always something new to learn and ways to improve. Join us as we share insights, experiences, and practical advice to help you on your path to becoming a better developer.


Stay Connected: Join the Developreneur Community

We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’

In the final episode of season 21, the Developer podcast hosts Michael and Rob reflect on the lessons they've learned about becoming better developers over the past few months.


Listen to Rob and Michael recap Season 21, Discussing Lessons Learned and Becoming Better Developers.





Here are some of the key takeaways on Becoming Better Developers:

Invest Time in Working ON Your Business, Not Just IN It

One of Rob's main realizations was that he spent too much time on client projects. He was not taking enough time to improve and market his consulting business. To address this, Rob instituted a weekly "business development" time. During this period, he would step away from client work and focus on branding, automation tools, marketing strategies, and other efforts. The goal was to grow his business, not just execute client projects.


Refocus and Redefine Your Brand

For Michael, the past season involved a lot of rebranding, soul-searching, and really defining who his core customer is and what services he wants to focus on providing. He pruned out the consulting work that didn't align with his new vision to build a more focused brand around his new Envision QA product line.


Get Organized

Along with redefining his brand, Michael had to get organized—going through old code repositories, archiving obsolete projects, and separating out components for his new products. This provided clarity on what assets were still relevant moving forward.


Keep Learning and Staying Current

Both Michael and Rob emphasized the importance of continuously learning and keeping your skills up-to-date in order to stay relevant and marketable. Michael cited examples of getting re-certified, learning new languages and frameworks, and studying emerging areas like cloud and AI.


Periodically Try Something New

Rob advised trying new things periodically. This could be a new programming language, new tools, or revisiting an old area you hadn't practiced recently. Trying new things helps keep you out of ruts. It can also reignite your passion for areas you drifted away from over the years.


Do What You Enjoy

A recurring theme was the importance of finding enjoyable work. The work should energize you rather than drain you. Rob said, "We are not serving ourselves, our customers, or our families if we're not doing stuff we enjoy." He added, "That's what we're going to do best." Doing work you enjoy was emphasized as crucial.


Reflect on Progress

The hosts recommended periodic reflection. Look back at where you were six months or a year ago. Appreciate the progress you've made. Evaluate areas with less progress. Refocus your efforts in those areas. Celebrate your wins. But don't settle for where you are now.


Get Feedback, Make Adjustments

Finally, they advocated proactively getting feedback - whether from a manager, customers, or just self-evaluating strengths and weaknesses. Use that feedback to make adjustments, invest in training to shore up weaknesses, and optimize your strengths. Consistently re-calibrating based on feedback is key.


A final thought on becoming better developers

The main message? Consistent self-reflection, redefining priorities, continuous learning, and aligning your work with your skills and passions are crucial to purposefully growing as a developer over the long run. With intentionality and wisdom, the journey to becoming better developers can be an ever-rewarding one.


Stay Connected: Join the Developreneur Community

We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at info@develpreneur.com with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.


Additional Resources

Bootcamps or Custom Training – P

In the latest podcast episode, we explored the crucial topic of organizing business documentation—a challenge every entrepreneur faces, particularly in the tech industry. As we approach the season's end, we reflect on balancing working on your business and in your business. This episode delved into maintaining effective organization to ensure an efficient and productive workflow.






The Perennial Struggle with Organizing Business Documentation

One perennial struggle entrepreneurs face is balancing building their brand/business and performing paid work. This balancing act involving client-facing tasks and backend organizational work can be challenging. As we hit mid-year, it's timely to reassess and reorganize, just as we do at the start of the year or during spring cleaning.


Organizing Digital Spaces

We discussed the importance of periodically reviewing and organizing our digital spaces, akin to clearing lockers at the end of the school year. As responsibilities grow, we must proactively create organizational rhythms in our professional lives. For those in tech, this often means managing documentation, code, emails, and project materials.


Using Version Control to Organizing Business Documentation

In software development, we have the luxury of version control for our code, ensuring it’s easily searchable and well-organized. However, other materials like emails, status reports, design documents, and demo write-ups often get lost in the shuffle. Though seemingly secondary, these materials are crucial for future reference and can save us considerable time and effort if appropriately organized.


Expert Tips for Organizing Business Documentation

Key takeaways included:

Have a centralized documentation repository (Confluence, shared drive, etc.)

Include how-to guides, setup instructions, and standards as one-page cheat sheets.

Regularly review document storage to ensure proper filing.

Use bookmark managers to organize research/references efficiently.

Utilize tools like Calibre to manage digital book/article collections.

Leverage cloud storage solutions for accessibility.


Regular Reviews

A key strategy is regular, scheduled reviews of your digital workspace. Setting aside weekly time to clear your desk, review priorities, and plan can significantly reduce stress and increase productivity, ensuring you stay on top of tasks.


Effective organization prepares you for future tasks and ensures quick access to needed information/resources. Implementing these strategies allows entrepreneurs to balance better working on their business with working in their business, leading to greater efficiency and success.


Stay Connected: Join the Developreneur Community

We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at info@develpreneur.com with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.


Additional Resources

Navigating Communication Tools in Modern Workplaces

Version Control – The Key To Modern Development

CYA Documentation: Getting Started With Consulting

Behind the Scenes Podcast Video

Welcome back to another episode of Building Better Developers, where we dive into essential aspects of software development. Today, we're delving into "Managing Hardware Resource Issues in Software Development: Best Practices and Real-World Examples." In this episode, we'll explore the often-overlooked yet critical area of hardware resource challenges and their impact on software performance. From memory and storage constraints to processing limitations, we'll navigate through common issues developers face and provide insights into effective debugging strategies and optimization techniques. Let's embark on this journey to understand and address hardware resource issues in software development.


Listen to Host Rob and Michael discuss how they Manage Hardware Resource Issues:





The Intersection of Hardware Resource Issues and Software Development

Debugging isn't just about finding and fixing code errors; it's also about understanding hardware limitations. As developers, we might face memory, processing, and storage issues, particularly when dealing with large-scale applications, big data, or heavy user loads.


Memory and Storage Issues: One of the biggest hurdles is managing memory and storage efficiently. For instance, when physical memory is exceeded, systems start caching to disk, significantly slowing down processing. This is especially true with older, disk-driven storage, where processing speeds can drop from microseconds to several seconds. Modern SSDs mitigate this to some extent, but challenges remain.


Real-world Example: Imagine an application running smoothly until it hits a memory limit. Suddenly, it starts swapping data to disk, slowing down operations. Users, noticing the delay, might re-trigger processes, compounding the issue. A simple solution like adding more memory might seem tempting, but a more robust fix involves optimizing the software to handle resources better.


Debugging Beyond Code: Addressing Hardware Resource Issues

Deeper issues might be at play when software behaves unpredictably despite no code changes. These situations necessitate detailed logging and monitoring of the operating system and platform to identify the root cause.


Example of Debugging Approach: A developer might initially write code that handles small datasets well but faces performance issues with larger datasets. Switching from processing entire files in memory to processing them line-by-line can help, but a complete paradigm shift is sometimes necessary. Using a relational database for complex operations instead of in-memory processing can drastically improve performance.


Distributed Systems and Microservices: Managing Hardware Resource Issues

Microservices and APIs are prevalent in today's distributed computing landscape. These systems can mask underlying problems as they scale up.


Healthcare Application Case Study: An application was crashing due to a combination of insufficient processing power, memory, and disk space. The initial fix involved moving processes to different servers, but persistent issues led to a comprehensive hardware upgrade and better load management strategies.


Tips for Better Resource Management to Avoid Hardware Resource Issues

Understand Resource Utilization: Developers must understand how their code impacts system resources. Tools like profilers can help monitor CPU and memory usage, identifying leaks and bottlenecks.

Optimize Data Storage and Retrieval: It is crucial to use databases and in-memory data stores. Techniques like indexing and temporary tables can drastically reduce processing times.

Avoid Overloading Systems: Ensure that applications don't unnecessarily burden the system. Log files, for example, should be managed to prevent them from consuming excessive disk space.

Prepare for Scalability: Design applications to scale efficiently, balancing the load across distributed systems and ensuring that containers or

Welcome back to Building Better Developers, your go-to podcast for Becoming a Better Developer. In this episode, "Successful Presentation Tips for Developers: Effective Demo Strategies," we explore the nuances of delivering presentations and demos, focusing on non-technical aspects that can significantly impact your performance. We also explore how to set yourself up for success and avoid common pitfalls that can undermine your credibility and effectiveness.


Listen to the Podcast Successful Presentation Tips for Developers: Effective Demo Strategies





Preparation: The Key to Successful Presentation Tips for Developers

Arrive Early: The importance of arriving early cannot be overstated. Aim to be at the venue at least 30 to 45 minutes before your scheduled time. This cushion allows you to handle any unforeseen issues, like a missing cable or dead batteries in your remote. Imagine the stress of realizing you need an essential item just minutes before you’re supposed to start. Early arrival gives you time to troubleshoot and procure any missing components.


Bring Your Equipment: Always bring all the equipment you will need. Do not assume that the venue will have everything. This includes adapters, cables, and a backup device. One real-world example highlighted in the podcast was an event where the DJ did not have the correct adapter for an iPhone, resulting in a last-minute scramble to find a solution. The lesson? Bring your own gear and backups to avoid such scenarios.


Backup Your Files: Have multiple copies of your presentation. Store them on your laptop, a USB drive, and in the cloud. This redundancy ensures that you can still deliver your presentation even if one source fails. Additionally, carry a printed version for absolute emergencies.


Technical Setup: Ensuring Smooth Execution with Effective Demo Strategies

Test Your Equipment: Before starting, test your microphone, video connections, and software settings. Use the built-in testing tools available in platforms like Zoom to ensure your audio and video are functioning correctly. Verify that your hardware and software configurations are optimal and consistent with your presentation needs.


Plan for the Worst: Prepare for potential equipment failures. Carry a universal adapter kit and familiarize yourself with the available AV equipment at the venue. Knowing how to quickly switch to a backup plan can save your presentation from unexpected technical glitches.


Simplify Your Setup: If your demo involves code, consider using screenshots or mockups instead of live coding. This approach minimizes the risk of typos and other errors that can occur under pressure. You can create an interactive presentation that simulates the live demo experience without the associated risks.


Effective Presentation Techniques for Developers

Stick to the Script: Avoid deviating from your planned demo. Live audiences may request unplanned actions, but unless you have thoroughly tested these, politely decline or offer to explore them offline. Going off-script increases the risk of errors and can derail your presentation.


Highlight Key Points: Ensure that your slides are well-organized and free of errors. Use clear, concise language and avoid clutter. Each slide should support your narrative and be easy for the audience to follow.


Interactive Demos: For interactive elements, pre-prepare clickable demos using HTML pages or PowerPoint slides with hyperlinks. This method allows you to control the flow of the demo and ensures that the audience sees exactly what you intend to show.


Handling Code Demos: Essential Strategies for Developers

Pre-Written Code: When demonstrating code, use pre-written and tested code snippets. Copy and paste these snippets into your development environment during the demo. This approach avoids live coding errors and keeps the demo flowing smoothly.


Commented Code: Organize your code with comments