When you’re starting out as a programmer, you put a lot of emphasis on learning the technical side of your chosen language, framework, or stack. But what happens when you graduate from school, a bootcamp, or your own self-taught curriculum? Experienced and newbie programmers share what they learned as a developer that school and bootcamps didn’t prepare them for. 1. The First Language/Tool You Learn Won’t be Your Last “When you’ve worked in the tech industry for as long as I have, you realize your tech stack isn’t as important as it seemed to be when you started out. Once you know procedural programming, you’ll quickly pick up any procedural…

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…

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…

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…

Programming languages: There’s a lot to unpack there. For those new to the field, you probably have questions like How many programming languages are there (and, more importantly, how many should I know)? How do programming languages work? How and why are they made? How do programming languages make money? To answer these questions, 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 to all industry personas. He’s also written several books and countless blog posts on dozens of sites.…