Started new job almost two moths ago..

For almost 3 years I was developing custom themes, plugins, and widget for WordPress using PHP, jQuery/AJAX, and MySQL.

The new company that hired me brought me on as a backend developer to help rebuild their custom PHP Framework, and other web based software/products as their moving toward Google Cloud Platform.

When I started, MVC and OOP was new to me... took a couple weeks to get the hang of things, and understand their system.

Just when I was getting comfortable, I had a task assigned to me that was all NodeJS...

Had a 30 check-in the week I started the Node task, and was feeling pretty beat down because it was all new to me and I wasn’t making a lot of progress, and still not comfortable with Promises yet, and some other ES6 features but finding my way around slowly but surely.

Manager reassured me that I wasn’t going to be fired and it wasn’t unique to myself. Very encouraging to hear, but I’m my own worst critic so it’s frustrating not being able to make progress like I would with PHP projects.

Fast forward to this week, I started to review another task for a feed and found it’s all Ruby! Another language I have no familiarity with... and started to question if I’ll every get the hang of all these languages and be a solid team member...

Not only do I have to get a grasp on NodeJS and Ruby now, but then I’ll also have to get familiar with GCP and whatever else comes along with it...

Oh and I’m using Linux now instead of Windows/ OSX... so there’s that too.. plus the other command line tools the company built, and uses..

I was comfortable developing in PHP and know I needed to take a step and accept this job to move my career forward but it seems like I’m always behind the 8 ball...

Some days I wonder if it was worth staying a Wordpress developer and just focused on learning ReactJS and stay more Front-end than Backend..

I enjoy working with talented people but I don’t like being the low man on the totem pole knowing I don’t have the experience yet.

Does it feel like this for all devs?!?!

How to start learning PHP MVC and OOP?

I’m starting a new job and it’s custom software, but I’m coming from a wordpress development background.

Be honest about your work experience, and willingness to keep learning.

1 - co-workers

2 - clients

3 - life... just life man

When a client asks "How difficult would it be.." or "Is it easy enough to..."

🖕

Never saying "I can't" or "I don't know how". Instead saying "I'll try" or "I haven't done that yet", and trying to complete the project or task.

And asking the experienced people around myself how they would have approached a project to get different perspectives.

Also keeping an open mind, trying to use new technologies when it's appropriate.

You can't bug fix, if you don't bug test

Testing before launch in 5 days... opens site in Safari aka OSX's IE...

Best experience: Getting my first contract for a major project, and landing a new job with a web agency for the first time!

Worst experience: Underestimating the contracted project, and having to learn while working on the project.

In the end it's all great experience, and reminds you that your always learning on the job.

Friend asked if I have ever built authentication using PHP and SQL...

Feel like sending links for them to research how instead of having me build it for them.

Teach a man to fish...?

Co worker who makes the sliders/ banners for the site asks how to get his form input beside on the right side... asks all three people in his department... worker with "20 years experience" says they should use "!important"
😳Ahhh best practice says DO IT RIGHT!

Co-worker with 20 years of "computer" experience, and another that's a graphic designer who has never used Illustrator make suggestions to the owner about what's best for the site... claims the problems he is having with Pricing wouldn't happen if he wasn't using WooCommerce, because "it's really only good for small sites, not sites with 3000 items or more..."
I died a little inside from laughing, as the problems are coming from a custom plugin created by his dev!
n00bs

Co-workers conversation about the new Google Pixel... "I won't get it because they steal your soul, same reason why I don't have the iPhone with the finger print.. they want to have all your information... blah blah..."
I laugh, because they device doesn't matter... your info gets stolen in transit... so all your snap chat, IG DMs, and all of communication potentially at risk to be "stolen".
Example, Gov't splicing into underwater fiber optic cables and redirecting traffic to a data center...
Understand the tech.. please.

Girl I work with says she's going to make a change on the "back-end of the website"... logs into Wordpress... no comment, just keep swimming

Hosting single page website on Dropbox public folder FTW.