Lessons From a Veteran: Juan Reyes on Hard Work and Humble Beginnings
This post is part of a series interviewing veteran developers, asking them questions about their journey to tech mastery and sharing the advice they have for those getting started. Today we’re talking to Juan Reyes, an engineer, entrepreneur, and writer living in Tokyo, Japan. An engineer by profession and a dreamer by heart, Juan crossed the seas to reach Japan following the promise of opportunity and challenge. Eventually, he left his stable career at a large IT firm to create his own startup, and he hasn’t looked back since. Let’s see what lessons he has to share for other aspiring entrepreneurs. Let’s start by talking about you: What has your…
Best Way to Learn Python: Resources and a Brief How-To
Python is one of the fastest growing programming languages. Even though it’s been around since 1989, it’s still widely used and learned. It provides an opportunity to work with a lot of programming fields, from web development to data science to game development. If you want to get started in Python and don’t know how, you’re in the right place. Lots of open-source materials are available for you to learn Python. In this post, I’ll share some easy-to-follow resources that will help you get started on your Python journey. After that, I’ll explain some Python basics that we’ll use to build a simple program. Beginner Python Resources I’ll divide the…
Why Are Programmers Paid so Much? Programmer Pay Explained by an Expert
There may be plenty of negative stereotypes about programmers that aren’t true, but one that stereotype that is pretty accurate is that they’re paid well. That may not be true of the entire industry, but on average, programmers tend to be relatively affluent and also have a variety of nonmonetary benefits at their jobs. So, why are programmers paid so much? Is it because they work long hours? To answer these questions, we sat down with Erik Dietrich. Erik has worked as a developer, architect, manager, CIO, and, eventually, independent management and strategy consultant. This breadth of experience allows him to speak to all industry personas. Let’s hear what he…
Lessons From a Veteran: John Pereira on Just Having Fun With It
This post is part of a series interviewing veteran developers, asking them questions about their journey to tech mastery and sharing the advice they have for those getting started. Today we’re talking to John Pereira. John is a technology enthusiast who’s passionate about his work and all forms of technology. With over 15 years in the technology space, his area of expertise lies in API and large-scale web application development, and its related constellation of technologies and processes. He lives in sunny Sri Lanka, where he works as a senior back-end developer for a Dutch SaaS event company. You can find him writing odds and ends on randomcoding.com and on…
Programmer Imposter Syndrome: 3 Devs Explain How to Overcome It
Programmers at all stages of their careers deal with imposter syndrome. But that feeling of inadequacy is especially prevalent among aspiring and junior developers, who often question whether they deserve to work alongside senior developers on a project or team. Those new developers may not realize their more experienced colleagues suffered from imposter syndrome when they were starting out and may even continue to feel that way. Imposter syndrome is often a meritless feeling. But knowing that doesn’t help you dismiss or deal with it. In this post, we’ll learn about three programmers’ experience with imposter syndrome. They’ll share tips on how to overcome it and explain why it’s OK…
Programmer Education Requirements Explained by an Expert
Unlike in many careers, aspiring programmers aren’t locked into going to college and getting a computer science degree. You can do that, but there are other paths you can take to become a programmer. That being said, there must be some minimum requirements to become a programmer. So, how much education do you need to become a programmer? And are programmers smart? To answer those questions, we talked to Erik Dietrich. Erik has worked as a developer, architect, manager, CIO, and, eventually, independent management and strategy consultant. This breadth of experience allows him to speak to all industry personas. So, let’s hear Erik’s take on whether programmers need to be…
Programmer Personality Traits Explained by an Expert
Stereotypes abound about programmers. People who are drawn to tech are introverted, socially awkward, lazy, or rude—or so laypeople believe. But are they really? Certainly, people who have these traits exist in software development. That’s why the stereotypes exist. But there are plenty of people who don’t fit within this mold. To understand why these stereotypes exist and why—especially when it comes to the notion that programmers are lazy—they’re often wrong, we sat down with someone with years of experience in the software world: Erik Dietrich. Erik has worked as a developer, architect, manager, CIO, and, eventually, independent management and strategy consultant. This breadth of experience allows him to speak…
100 Days of Code: Disney Web Producer Katie Reynolds on Self-Reliance
This post is part of a series interviewing folks who have recently participated in the #100DaysOfCode challenge. Today we’re talking to Katie Reynolds, a web producer for Disney. Katie has worked in web content management for over a decade, but she never needed to know much coding besides very basic HTML. In her current role, she does most of her work in a no-code content management system (CMS). After her company furloughed her for a few months during the pandemic, Katie realized that she felt like she didn’t have any real technical skills in the event that she needed to find a new job. That motivated her to kick-start her…
100 Days of Code: From Ambulance Driver to Dev With the Coding Paramedic
This post is part of a series interviewing folks who have recently participated in the #100DaysOfCode challenge. Today, we’re talking to Elias Rostad, who goes by the alias @CodingParamedic on Twitter. Why the Coding Paramedic? Because he worked as a paramedic for 10 years before turning to code. Elias’ work as a paramedic ranged from big cities to small towns to a ship in the Pacific Ocean for two months to AirMed on a helicopter. As a paramedic, Elias was getting burned out, particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic. His wife noticed how much he enjoyed playing with the Grasshopper learn-to-code app and suggested he explore programming further. So, Elias bought…
Magento Performance Concerns and How to Boost It
If you’re a web developer interested in working in e-commerce, Magento should definitely be on your radar. Experts and famous e-commerce players regard Magento as one of the major platforms for running online stores. Magento is a top choice of mid-sized and large companies, as the CMS enables serving thousands of visitors simultaneously and provides broad opportunities for customization and scaling. In turn, this often leads to a bunch of problems related to the overall performance of such sites and, in particular, their speed. Every Magento migration company is aware of possible troubles and searches for efficient solutions to overcome them. In this post, we’ll consider some classic peculiarities of…
