The Brotherhood of Becoming Better Developers

The Aftermath: What became of Becoming a Better Developer

George Clingerman — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 01:06:26 GMT

Just over six months ago (at the end of June 2007), I started on a path to becoming a better developer. This was a movement started by the impressive, charismatic and sexy blogger Justice Gray (the check is in the mail right?). He hand picked me to be in on the first generation of developers dedicated to focusing the next six months of their lives to becoming a better developer. I immediately hopped on board (by "immediately" I mean after several nagging emails from Justice to get started) this movement that soon became an Internet phenomenon.

The idea of the movement was simple. Create a set of goals to focus on for the next 6 months. These goals should in some way be measurable (and focused on improving yourself as a developer) and make sure to declare these goals to the world. Finally, "tag" some other developers you know and encourage them to do the same.

So six months ago, I made my first post, setup my four goals, tagged four other people and was off to a roaring start.

...if roaring means struggling, kicking and flailing, desperately trying to fight my way to the surface of the waters only to be smashed back under by the next huge wave of life. Roar.

To put it simply. Becoming a better developer is hard. Here's the breakdown of how I did on each of my goals.

I will read 1 technical book every month for the next 6 months.

I knew this one was going to be tough from the start. I did manage to struggle through four books, but I didn't finish the six books I was aiming for with this goal. Here's the list of the books that I did finish over the past six months.

I just never seemed to be able to find a good way to fit reading technical books into my life. I tried setting up reminders and alerts to take an hour to read. I tried scheduling meetings for myself at work. I tried placing them beside me at night in bed. I was super resistant to reading technical books. I hated them. The ones I did manage to get through were a chore. I loved them, just hated reading them. If that makes any sense, then you're probably already friends with me.

I will write one XNA framework tutorial or game demo every month for the next 6 months.

I was SO close on this one. And if I felt like "cheating" I could totally call this one a win. But I can't and I won't (I did two REALLY short tutorials one weekend that I'm only counting as one, I mean, they were REALLY short). Here's the list of tutorials and game demos I managed to create over the last six months.

Writing the CoDe Magazine article was a blast and definitely moved me out of my comfort zone. I'm really trying to come up with another good idea for an article I can submit and try to get published again. I love writing tutorials and providing samples, but focusing on doing one a month really made me realize that I need to work harder on improving my process. Most of these tutorials take over 20+ hours to create. That's a lot of work I'm doing for something that's just for fun.

But I do love it. Just need to figure out how to do it more efficiently.

I will do one team presentation at work every month for the next 6 months.

This goal had one of the more interesting twists. I only managed to do five team presentations over the last six months and here's the list of those.

A Refresher Course on Debugging
An Introduction to the Portal
Beyond Compare and SQL Delta
An Introduction to C#
I’m not surfing the web, I’m becoming a more valuable employee: Good sites for Software Developers

So what's the twist? Well, I was having trouble focusing on doing team presentations. So, like everything I try to fit into my life. I tried to find a way to make it harder for me to fail. Out of that brainstorming session, "A Viewpoint Developer presents..." was born. This was a new weekly meeting I started for the developers at my company. Every Tuesday, there's a room reserved for a 30 minute time slot for a member of the development team to present on anything. New tools, new technologies, projects they're working on or just some cool technology thing they've been playing with. Having these weekly meetings has been great for me and made it much easier to work on my presentation skills (now if I can just convince some more developers to do their OWN talks instead of only listening to me talk....).

I will write one blog post every week for the next 6 months.

Oh. My. Gosh. I totally sucked at this one. Initially, I had myself setup to nail this one. Right after I wrote my goals, I sat down and made a list of things I could blog about every week for the next six months. I had WAY more than enough material to make it with flying colors. But the blog doesn't lie. Looking over the past six months shows a VERY inconsistent blogging pattern.

Yikes! That stings a little. Maybe it was over confidence? Maybe it was just that every time I thought about blogging, I thought to myself, umm...who wants to hear what you have to say anyway? Maybe it's because every time I start to blog I think I should write paragraph after paragraph? Who knows. All I know is that I totally missed the boat on that one.

So yeah, there it is in black and white. The facts and figures clearly show someone who did NOT meet their goals. I didn't even meet one of my individual goals. But wait! (you knew that was coming didn't you? sure you did, go ahead, admit it, you're a smarty pants, you totally thought, "he's going to throw a 'but wait', in there and totally turn this thing on it's head and make it into some kind of victory even though I can clearly see he's a loser").

Yeah, yeah, don't rub it in Mr. Smarty Pants. You were right, I totally am going to turn this thing on it's head. You're going to be all like, WOW! He totally made me re-think life. And I'm glad I can do that for you. It's a free service I'm providing.

I was reviewing my goals as I was writing this post and as I sat and cried a little about what a dismal failure I was, it hit me. Don't miss the forest for the trees. And while I'm not exactly sure that's the right phrase or even what it really means, what it means for me in this case is, I failed in all of my individual trees, but there's still the forest.

That's right. I am a better developer.

I had almost forgotten that was the original goal.

It's true. I didn't manage to meet all of my goals. However, I have become a better developer over the last six months which was the entire purpose of this exercise. I've been published in a magazine, started a new program at work, produced a lot of new community content for XNA game development and read books I never would have read if I hadn't started on this path. I wish I had managed to meet every single one of my goals, but I'm still very happy with where I've ended up.

In fact, while I'm not claiming that it was entirely brought about by these goals (but I mean obviously ANY program started by THE Justice Gray is going to have amazing results), at the end of the six months, I was made a supervisor at work. Yep, that's right. Starting January 1st, I will be promoted into a management position. How's that for a testimonial?

So do I recommend you pick up the torch and set some personal goals for yourself? Absolutely. Announce them to the world and get going already.

Now I just need to figure out how to set goals to becoming a better supervisor....

Reading Tech Books is HARD!

George Clingerman — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:41:33 GMT

Seriously. Reading the entire way through a tech book is hard. I'm currently working on reading Code Complete as part of meeting one of my goals for "Becoming a Better Developer". This has become the one goal that I am having a serious struggle to finish this month. It's one of the hardest things I have done recently. I'm talking deadline is in a few days and you just realized that extra little feature you added during the final stages of the project when you knew you shouldn't but figured it wouldn't take much time and what would it hurt is causing massive project failure and panic hard.

What's so incredibly surprising about the difficulty I am having is that I LOVE to read. I read at least two books a week if not more. It is one of my favorite pastimes and reading is one of those few things that I just couldn't live without. I really couldn't live without my books (there you go Chris and Maryanne, I listed one thing at least ;) ). Granted, I read what most would consider "fluff" books. My true love is the fantasy genre and I devour those books. I always have. So why is reading a tech book so difficult? I was thinking about this and I set up in bed last night laughing because I had stumbled across the answer. Reading a tech book is a lot like "Making a Baby" sex. (you can tell this is going to a fun post now can't you? Now just realize I mentioned "bed" in the previous sentence and see where your mind goes....).

Yep, reading a tech books is a whole heck of a lot like "Making a Baby" sex. Instead of just saying "Making a Baby" sex over and over again just to try and make you blush and giggle, how about I explain a little. I like sex. I think most of us do to some degree. If you have ever experienced "Making a Baby" sex however, you know that is a whole new beast. When you are trying to conceive, sex isn't necessarily a spontaneous fun activity. You might start out that way, but as the weeks and months go by and there's still no bun in the oven, things change. Now "Making a Baby" sex takes a new form. You mark sex on the calendar. There's gadgets and devices that tell you the "right" time to have sex. It becomes a thing you put on your to do list. Surprise, surprise, it gets tiring. You get worn out. You can only "read" so much in a day you know.

I found reading Code Complete to be a similar experience. I started out just reading the book just whenever. No pressure. I like reading, so completing the book would just come naturally. The weeks went by however and things came up. I didn't always find the right time to read. I wasn't making progress. Now I'm having to force myself to read. Scheduling a time to read. It's become a chore. Makes me tired.

So what's the plan? How am I going to make it through this month and complete it? The same way you struggle through "Make a Baby" sex. You keep your eye on the goal and you smile in those tough times because you remember how much it's worth all the work. I'm loving the things that I am reading in Code Complete and I know when I have that completed book on my shelf I'm going to feel really good. I'm sure reading tech books is still going to seem like a chore, but every chore is worth doing if the goal is worth it to you and I feel this one is. It's always good to remind yourself of "why" you are doing something to keep you motivated.

I am going to finish this book...and my wife is pregnant.

A Refresher Course on Debugging

George Clingerman — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:20:08 GMT

Well, I gave my first team presentation today as part of my "Being a Better Developer" goals. Today's topic was "A Refresher Course on Debugging" and you can read the article I wrote for the topic if you follow that link.

The article was based on (i.e. copied from) one of the best debugging articles I have ever read. You can read the original and much more in depth article on debugging here (warning, it has a game development focus, but is still applicable to most developers).

The presentation itself went fairly well. Nothing flashy. I just quickly went over all the built in debugging options that exist in Visual Studio and showed how to access them. There were quite a few that I wasn't aware of before I started working on this presentation and I even picked up a nice couple of Visual Studio tricks from some other members of the team during the presentation ("Find All References" is a pretty slick and useful Visual Studio tool).

I think one of the most important things to get out of the article is that it's always good to review the basics. There's always a lot of new technologies and new development fads coming at you in this industry but often, improving yourself can just be reviewing some of the features you didn't know about in an application you use every day.

A Conversation with Scott Hanselman

George Clingerman — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 05:01:20 GMT

I was listening to Scott Hansleman's 70th podcast the other day and it brought back a memory from the MVP summit. It was at one of the Microsoft parties and towards the end of the night (did I mention the drinks were free?), I bumped into Scott Hanselman and had a little conversation with him. I've seen Scott around, being from the same area we attend some of the same geek events like the Portland Code Camp, but this was my first time I ever engaged him in a one on one conversation.

It was a blast!

It may have been my imagination (the drinks WERE free), but about 10 seconds into the conversation it suddenly occurred to me that Scott Hanselman was timing me. It was like the second I walked up to him, he visually assessed me and gave me a set conversation time, say about 2 minutes and 27 seconds. He was keeping this internal timer running in his head and after the timer reached 0, he'd wrap things up and move on. It makes sense, he's a busy guy, got a lot of geek fame and if he's going to circulate or get anything done, seems like a practical thing to do. So as we're talking and I'm watching this timer that I'm imagining running just behind his left eye, I begin to wonder if there are "checkpoint" bonuses. Like maybe if I hit on an interesting conversation topic or say something in a clever way, will Scott increase my allotted conversation time? And then on the flip side, if I drone on or bore him, is he decreasing my allotted time and preparing to move on sooner?

So yeah, I spent my entire 2 minutes and 27 seconds playing this imaginary game in my head. You do XNADevelopment? +10 seconds. Want to help me make a web browser for the 360? No? -10 seconds. You seem pretty drunk. -30 seconds. That was actually funny +10 seconds. Well, got to go.

It was a blast and I've told that story quite a few times.

Well, listening to Scott's podcast just brought it all back again so I went home on Friday night, coded all weekend and here we are on Sunday night with "A Conversation with Scott Hanselman".

It's just a simple little 2D XNA framework game. The code is fairly well commented and it demonstrates quite a few 2D game concepts that should help out beginners. The whole weekend demonstrates once of the concepts I picked up from Scott's interview with the author of the 4 hour work week. Create an environment to set yourself up for success. That's how I finished this game in a weekend. I took away the distractions, surrounded myself with the materials I needed to develop and I got it done. I had an absolute blast.

Now I don't know Scott too well, just that one brief conversation at the MVP summit and I don't know if he ACTUALLY has an internal conversation timer or not. I do know it sparked the material for a fun little weekend project and so to give a little back to the guy who inspired me, I want to point out Scott's "Fight Diabetes" fund raising goal.

Scott lives with Type 1 diabetes and is making a serious effort to raise $50,000 to help fight diabetes. Do what you can and pledge a little or a lot to help out. If you had fun checking out the game or it helped you in anyway, take some time to give him a donation to help meet his goal. Just to help you remember, I've added his pledge badge and link in the game as a friendly reminder and a way to help spread the word.

I still wonder though....was he REALLY timing me?

[Note: There have been some reported issues with the Fonts not being installed. I was aware that would most likely happen so I included the fonts as part of the solution so that you can add them to your system if you want. I also packaged it with the bin folder populated, so if you don't make code changes, you should be able to run it initially, you will just need the fonts to recompile any changes. The game also plays on the PC with the XBox 360 controller. There is minimal input required so if you want to convert the project to use the keyboard feel free. Have fun!]]

Technorati Tags: XNA

How I am becoming a better developer...

George Clingerman — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:41:01 GMT

Today marks the start of my journey to becoming a better developer. I am telling you all about it so that I can be held accountable for things I am about to say. I did not want to over think this but I did want to do things that challenged me as a developer on a variety of level. This is the current list of 6 months goals. I will not remove anything from this list, but I may add to it as I begin this journey to improve as a developer.

I will read 1 technical book every month for the next 6 months.

I read a lot. Often 5 or 6 books in a week. But I do NOT read technical books. I never have. I have a long list of books that every developer should have read, but I have yet to read any of them. I always say, "Yeah, I should read that sometime". I am going to start changing that now. First up on my list is "Code Complete". I will take recommendations for my next 5 technical books that a developer should read.

I will write one XNA framework tutorial or game demo every month for the next 6 months.

I am a Microsoft XNA MVP. I need to make sure I'm making it a priority to show why I deserve the title. I need to challenge myself to keep to a regular schedule of releases. Writing the tutorials are time consuming and challenging, but I have improved as a developer with every new game demo or tutorial released on my site. I am going to make sure that becomes a habit.

I will do one team presentation at work every month for the next 6 months.

I am constantly mentioning new technologies or suggesting new "best practices" to my development team, but it is time for me to step up and begin teaching. I will present something to the development team at work at least once a month. My first presentation will be in July and will be on something every developer can use. Improving your debugging skills based off this wonderful article.

I will write one blog post every week for the next 6 months.

I love to write. I really do. So why don't I blog more often? Same reasons I didn't start down this path to becoming a better developer. Writing one blog post every week is going to be challenging for me, especially when looking at my past track record, but I know that I should. If I want to become a better developer, I need to write about being a developer. That includes all aspects of being a developer and I need to start learning how to do that more consistently.

So that's the start of it for me. Those four will be major changes in my current development lifestyle. I want to do this because I really believe in this process and I'm still kicking myself that it took me this long to get started. I'm on board now Justice, let's get this movement moving.

I will now tag four other developers to continue this developer revolution. Chris, I know you're busy but I want to throw this challenge out to you as well. You have your hand in so many technologies and you learn them all so quickly. You're also an inspiration to a ton of developers and everyone loves "that developer with all the tattoos". I want you to set some goals for yourself and share some of those tricks you've learned as a traveling developer. Next, I'm going to tag two other big fish that can really use their power to get things rolling in this better developer movement. Rory, you're a developer at heart, so I do want you to challenge yourself to be a better one. I also want to extend the challenge for both you and Jason (yeah, I'm tagging you as well big guy) to not only improve yourselves, but to seriously try and think of a way to inspire your worldwide audience of developers to improve. Help us help ourselves. Finally, I'm going to take a group of developers that I work with. These are the guys I work and talk with the most so I want them to start thinking about this. Jonathan, Rick, Aaron, Sean and Tim. You guys all need to take up this challenge and get moving (you guys need to get some blogs too!).

I'm going to keep on eye on the people I've tagged and if they don't start moving on this, I'll tag some others so we can get this spreading. If you've read this and feel the call, consider yourself tagged. Just make a comment to let me know that you've started the process and I'll add you to my list of "The Brotherhood of Becoming Better Developers".

How I didn't become a better developer

George Clingerman — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:40:42 GMT

April 17th, 2007 is a day that has been burned into my mind. This is the day I was given a very serious task. This is the day I was branded with a mark. The mark is for a brotherhood. The task I was assigned was to spread the gospel of the brotherhood to others. Later, I was to then brand those ready to accept the tenets of the faith with the mark of the brotherhood. I was to assign to them my task and make it theirs. I was to continue in this work in perpetuity.

What is the brotherhood? It’s a vision of Justice Gray. It is a vision, no, a FEVER, that we should all have as developers. A passion, drive and desire to not accept our current level of “developer-ness” but to push on and to improve upon our developer state of being. Then to take that a step further and spread this vision, this fever, this passion to other developers until those we work with and the development community at large has all been branded. Until we all are improving ourselves and each other.

Until now I have been failing my brothers, you and most importantly myself in carrying out this task.

Until now.

You see, I had lofty plans. Big ideas. I truly intended to walk this road to enlightenment with the brotherhood from the start. Instead, I got sucked down into the same pit the brotherhood is trying to rescue others from. The pit of developer stagnation and inactivity. I didn't become the better developer I was planning on becoming. I didn't help others become better developers. I didn't pass the torch and give others the mark. This is how that happened.

Agile isn't just a development practice

I spent so much time making plans, having ideas, creating designs that I never even got on the road to enlightenment. I could see the road, but I was not quite ready to march on it. I wanted my words to be perfect. I wanted to say things the right way. In the end, I didn't say anything at all. We've seen this in coding so many times. We spend so long on designing a class, thinking about efficiency issues that might arise and in the end, the deadline is there and nothing has been coded. I talk about this with developers a lot, telling them make it work THEN make it work better. I should have taken my own advice. That first day, I should have announced that I was joining in the march and picked some others. Instead, I find myself three months later looking back and trying to decide where the time went and why I didn't write ANYTHING. Don't over-design, don't over think and sometimes, it's good just to get started. Writers and artists will tell you, the worst thing to stare at is a blank piece of paper. Doodle something on it, write something on it. Coders should take that same advice. Don't stare at an empty class. Code a little something in it, get those creative juices flowing. Start marching towards your goal. I should have started this march three months ago. The nice thing is it's not too late to start now.

Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize

Throughout the last three months, I could create a thousand reasons for why I did not just write one little post. In the end, it comes down to “ME” not being a priority. I often pushed a lower priority project up on my list to take over a higher priority project. Myself. You should always be on your priority list. There is never a good reason you should not be on your own project list. I did this to myself too much. I let other things in my life replace my own importance. The whole point of this "becoming a better developer" process is to get developers to focus on themselves. Not just in the technical sense (although that is important), but in the overall process of "being" a developer. That includes all aspects of you. You can not become better developers (or help others become better developers) if you are not a priority to yourself.

Nothing risked, Nothing gained

I was scared. I am still scared. Most of my life I have been scared. This has impacted me in so many areas of my life and continues to be a deterrent from helping me become a better developer. If I don't speak up, if I don't take the risks (read "opportunities") that are presenting themselves to me. I will not become a better developer. I will stagnate and disappear. This is a hard one to overcome. Childhood is hard on geeks. We get used to hiding to avoid the ridicule often associated with being smart and having poor social skills. Unfortunately, this can set us up for the rest of our lives to never reaching our true potential as fully self-actualized developers. I recently did a Code Camp presentation and it obsessed me for months. Did I spend a lot of time preparing for it? No. I spent a lot of time keeping my fingers from hitting send on the email that said, "I'm sorry, I won't be able to speak at Code Camp". Fear almost kept me from doing something that turned out to be a fun experience. And it consumed so much of my life at that point, that it prevented me from doing a lot of other things. Don't let fear stop you from becoming a better developer. Take those risks..I mean opportunities!

My goal in sharing with you some of the things that were holding me back is to get you to evaluate your own life and situation to figure out what is holding you back. It might be the same things, it might be something different. I do know this, there is no excuse for not becoming a better developer. There is no "right time" to start. You don't need to wait for the planets to align, you don't need to wait for the big project at work to be over, and you don't need to wait until the baby is born. The time is now.

Now is the time to become a better developer.