@shdw I quit indulging in my self pity and adapted the motto: "Good things come to those who work their fucking asses off."

Completely rebuilt my API from the ground up and completely rebuilt my app in React Native for iOS and Android on one codebase.

I launched V2 a month ago and immediately quadrupled my users.

Still not making much money from it, but as I add more features to bolster the available in app purchases, I think it will be semi-lucrative. Maybe... I hope.

And yeah, I didn't hire anyone or take any funding. I started to bring on a friend, it wasn't working for us so we split amicably. Luckily I had put a cliff in the contract so I didn't lose any equity because we severed before the cliff.

For me, it absolutely depends on who I'm speaking to. You'll sometimes hear me say "I'm a Senior Software Architect" if I'm talking to somebody who understands the technology industry.

If I'm talking to someone less familiar with the industry, I use "Software Engineer," "Software Developer," or "Computer Programmer" interchangeably.

If I'm talking to my coworkers I might say "He's a C# dev at XYZ company" or "She prefers coding Angular."

It's really no different than any other industry. The specifics only matter to those who give a shit about the specifics. Most people asking "What do you do?" don't, unless they are also in the industry.

Hahaha! Yas! This is me!

@Folkmann This actually made me tear up.

My dad got me started programming in C when I was 9 years old. He worked as a Software Engineer at Intel for as long as I can remember. He was a genius!

He passed away when I was 13 years old, and today I am a Senior Software Architect.

I often think about how great it would be if he were still around to share nerdshit with.

Call me sappy, or a buzzkill, but cherish that shit! You have something really special and I am envious!

@stackodev I think, if you talk about any coworker behind their back, regardless of time or skill, you're a problem.

That said, my personal opinion differs slightly. Sure, we don't and can't know everything about every framework/language/technology out there, but regardless of whether you're an "older" dev or not, if you don't immerse yourself in current tech and trends, you are allowing yourself to become obsolete. Us "older" devs don't get a pass when it comes to relevance. Quite the opposite really, we should be setting the example.

@oo92 no need to point out "no shitheads" here. That's inherently obvious by the name "devRant."

Now if it were called projectManagerRant, that'd be different.

@phiter remember, ego and confidence are two very different things.

Confidence looks like "I can handle that!"

Ego looks like "I can handle that better than you!"

With ego often comes the inability to take constructive criticism, which makes nobody want to work with you.

I too am self-taught. I too had ego issues. Once I learned to accept the fact that there ARE developers who are better than I am, I felt better, and my coworkers liked me more. This is one of the tips that I can tell you I learned the hard way.

Sometimes ego is useful to give yourself confidence, but when that ego is thrown in people's faces, they'll resent it/you.

@SweetHuman denial of service is actually a broad term, which can encompass multiple different types of attacks (even unintentional ones.)

A DDoS is more specific and typically floods a system with more traffic than it can process, and blocking offenders is difficult because there are so many.

This all happens long before it reaches the Application Layer. Ultimately, this means that software cannot solve this (aside from software implemented in the network infrastructure such as network appliance firmware)

I hate when people get upset over how I operate my own mouse and keyboard.

It's my keyboard/mouse, I'll click when I want! I'm in charge of my own world! I'm the master of my own universe!

All joking aside, I use keyboard shortcuts for many many things. I still prefer clicking in the taskbar over Alt-Tab. Sue me.

@renegade When a client asks for an ETA on a bug, I set my status to "Away."

No, truthfully, that is my weakest area. I have never been any good at estimating time.

I typically tell them "It will take me some time to diagnose the issue. Until I know why it's broken and come up with a plan of action to resolve it, any ETA I give is a shot in the dark."

Any good technology leader should play top-cover for you with generic statements like "We're looking into the bug as we speak and will get back to you on an ETA as we know more."

What is this witchery?!?! Kill it with fire!

Scrum isn't perfect, but if you guys are doing retrospectives, that would be a good time to bring that up. Your team will most likely back you up.

If your manager doesn't like the criticism, or ignores it, it's time to go above his head with the issue, while looking for something else in case they let you go for it (they shouldn't, but let's face it: some people are assholes)

Side Tip: as a manager myself, nothing will put you in poor-graces with your manager faster than going above his head without FIRST bringing the problem to his/her attention and giving them the opportunity to address it.

It's simple for me: my salary is a representation of my value to the company.

If I feel underpaid, I AM unhappy. For me there is no such thing as underpaid and happy.

I look for a bit of middle-ground. I want to be paid for market value, and I want to like the work I'm doing.

The problem with being overpaid is that if the company hit's hard times, you'll be among the first to feel the squeeze.

The trick is to view each problem as a puzzle and enjoy tracking down a solution to the puzzle.

When you START getting frustrated, take a break.

When you implement good troubleshooting techniques, and enjoy trying to solve the problem, coding becomes far more enjoyable, and you actually get better at problem solving.

It's seriously all about perspective. Curiosity rather than irritation.

Or, you could fix their computer and be happy to have the clients, take the money and save for your own machine that can handle more than 6 tabs?

Just sayin' I've always been a believer in "If you don't like your situation, change it."

@dalastTomCruise if he has one function that handles multiple different objects he should reconsider IMHO.

Just make the function a method of the object and you wont be able to call the method until the object has been initialized.

@tahnik "high" five.

I'm short also.

@tpalmerstudios thanks for the tip.

I'm not going to let it die. Not a chance. I'm just thinking some help would be fantastic.

I just don't know how to make it worth somebodies time, while not giving up too much of the pie.

Maybe it's better that I suck it up and wait to bring someone on, until I can pay them rather than give up equity.

That's a hard call to make, and why I'm hoping somebody who has "been there, done that" might be able to share some input.

@pixeltherapy thanks for the sound advice!

I am by no means freaking out, but admittedly, I can be impatient.

I am excited to start promoting/marketing, but I can't feel good about doing that until I know that it's a solid product.

I know that I can get it there, but I am running out of steam from going at this full force for awhile.

I want to grow it, but it's so easy to misstep. Misjudge the potential, or the growth rate, hire devs, and you set yourself up to have to lay people off. I never want to be in that position. I just don't have the business acumen.

<me> I'm a developer.
A what?
<me> A Software Engineer
A what?
<me> I'm a Computer Programmer
Oh! Can you make me a website?
<me> Yes.
Okay, I want a wordpre...
<me> No.

Yep, I've been in the same situation quite recently and have still seen some good initial success.

While first to market is good, set yourself apart by being better.

Not buying it. Tux appears far too disappointed for his current habitat.

I am most fluent in C, PHP and Perl, but recently started building an app by myself.

That meant PHP, learning Swift, Angular, and dusting off some minor Java experience.

I wont lie to you, I get mixed up sometimes.

A good IDE to snap you back to reality, and TRYING not to work in both languages at the same time (essentially allows me to "switch gears" mentally) helps.

At a previous company, I refactored a couple thousand for loops because their first dev would do something similar to:

for ($i=0; $i<count($array); $i++) {
//do something

if ($i == (count($array) - 1)) {
break;
}

$i++;
}

I couldn't believe my eyes when I found that in every.. single.. for loop.

Honestly, you couldn't pay me to go to college for CS.

I have progressed far enough into my career, that getting it accomplishes absolutely zero for me in terms of hireability/promotability, compensation or skill.

The only reason I wish I had attended formal schooling is because there are things that I do in code, which have terminology associated that I am ignorant of. For example, I have camelCased my code for many years, but only in the last couple years learned the term "camelCase."

If vocabulary and a piece of paper is all I stand to gain from tens of thousands of dollars in schooling, I'll pass.

Further, I have hired/worked with far too many new degree-holders who were absolutely worthless, and had far too many arguments with instructors who would rather have it done their way than the right way, to see the value for somebody who already has their foot in the door. Or, in my case, an established career.

Aptitude and experience trumps paper in my experience in this industry.

Later means never.

I don't mind it one bit because once you start to think about it from that perspective you can separate yourself from taking work personal.

I can quit for something better without feeling bad, because I know if they didn't need me, they would cut me in a heartbeat too.

They have no REAL loyalty to us (if you believe your company is different, you're probably naive.)

Employment is strictly a contract for exchange of goods.

I write good code, they pay me good money. I am a resource, and they are a paycheck.

@Gauthier *head explodes*

Whenever a piece of code has a goto statement
I can't resist:

Punching the person who wrote it in the face.

Sorry. I can't help it. I hate gotos almost as much as I hate hipsters with curly mustaches.