This will be the 6th iteration of a site that now hosts a variety of professional content based on my career in software development. Early on, I thought building my own app and implementing ci/cd processes to deploy content on a digital ocean droplet would amaze potential clients and recruiters! I over-over-engineered something that nobody even viewed.

Eventually JAMSTACK became a thing and I dedicated too much time swapping out trendy frameworks just to understand how the codebase worked. Red tape made publishing anything about my job scary. I always had ideas I wanted to publish, so a mix of cool lessons, personal nonsense and topics outside coding started sneaking into my site.

Now I'm excited to continue writing, unworried about continuity or sticking to specific topics. For most visitors, this checks a box that GitHub profiles never seem to fill.

Random snippets related to my skills are for those in need of help. The collection of soft-skills related articles are still a topic that needs more attention and I continue having new ideas about it's benefits.

So, "The Holy Trinity of Designers" in relation to skills needed to succeed as a designer are, "UTML, CSS, and JAVASCRIPT".... It's the year 2021, and I laughed after reading this today. Why? When I began learning how to code 9 years ago (back in 2013...wow), the standards of learning web development were "HTML, CSS... and JQuery (JavaScript)" . Do you get it? This means that the high bar that I had set for myself to become a PROGRAMMER is now how we label good DESIGNERS!!!! Am I now considered a designer? Fuuuuuck no. But I have a hard time wrapping my head around giving designers the developer tag.

Not that designers can't control the narrative and double down on building up their web dev skills. In fact, designers usually have the desired skill before even entering the design industry, which is not an easy talent to possess. I definitely know I don't possess a single bone of design-talent. Does that work both ways? A [good] developer has a fundamental talent for problem-solving. But I am pretty sure it is a basic talent that can be taught, while designing doesn't reward those like myself that never get better after practicing over time.

While problem solving seems to be a requirement, I don't believe beginners have an explicit universal list of prerequisites that promote any self awareness when starting out. Obviously the amount of content back 8n 2013 for teaching yourself web development did not exist. The communities, if any, were very unwelcoming, leaving newcomers to shy away from asking questions until we felt confident NOONE would shame us. But the content feels consistent even today, with videos and articles starting any newbies out with the understanding the concepts of the language or tool, never bothering to help the audience understand what type of people excel in this ecosystem.

Is it anyone's responsibility? Until veary recently, a requirement for a majority of jobs mandated having a Computer Science DEGREE! This meant that in 2013, any content was subconsciously created assuming the reader pissed a basic CS degree which literally teaches problem solving! Even if a senior PYTHON engineer would tackle a new language like JavaScript with a "junior dev" mantality, and yet never questioned what the prerequisites may be due to college!

I NEVER took any computer class. In fact, I dropped out of high school by 10th grade. Divorced parents moved me around 5 different school systems, but I can't remember any lessons that focused on what the fuck a solution meant outside of a math problem! "Problem solving" is a huge skill that can put someone from any industry in-demand if they are aware of it's importance. But in Computer Science, it's easy to make the mistake of assuming a "programming language" IS the solution. It is only a tool, a utility to solve complex tasks.

When I finally decided to switch careers and learn to code, I made the mistake of not understanding the role of a program language.

#post #ironicsuccess #dev #design