After reading this interesting post, that talks into detail on how many hours a day developers are actually coding, I found myself thinking about my profession as a developer. Especially, the article got me intrigued with the statement that both technical and non-technical people have this unreal image of developers that are coding all day and that we are sitting behind their computer screen non-stop.
Although that image might be true for a very select company amongst the developer community, the reality is that coding isn’t the main gig of our profession anymore…
With the ever expanding universe of developer tools, libraries, tutorials and low-level development platforms, coding actually isn’t that hard anymore.
I’m not saying that it doesn’t take lots of practice, effort, and an exploratory mindset to become a good developer.
But what I am saying, is that anyone with an interest in computers, figuring stuff out and a good Google skill set can find some tutorials and free tools and build something out of nothing within a matter of days. The bar for being able to create something has been lowered every year.
The heavy point for developers has shifted from knowing how to code towards knowing the end user of your product.
Diving into the mind of people, learning about the quirks during the usage of a service or product and how to empower them is where the biggest challenges lie for us nowadays. Being able to communicate with all related parties and connecting the dots to get to market in a fast and smart manner is what will help you deliver solutions to problems in this high tech Era.
Hence my credo:
Code hard, Ship Harder