Forem: Henry 👨‍💻

What's It Like Working at a Startup?

Henry 👨‍💻 — Fri, 29 May 2020 03:33:33 +0000

I've always been curious as to what it's like working at a startup. Is there a freedom associated with sometimes not having to focus on immediate profits and instead building a userbase? How much of the perceived craziness of Silicone Valley is accurate?

I'm really interested to hear all of your experiences.

What Have You Dev'd This Decade?

Henry 👨‍💻 — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 20:44:54 +0000

As the end of the decade fast encroaches upon us like RAM usage when Chrome is open 😉, I thought I'd ask the Dev community; what dev projects/skills are you most proud of working on this decade?

Best VS Code Python Extensions?

Henry 👨‍💻 — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 00:49:37 +0000

Hi,
since doing my summer internship I've been converted from atom to VS Code for web dev. This newfound appreciation has led me to want to try to use VS Code for more than just HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Prior to this point I'd used Atom for web dev, Pycharm for Python, IntelliJ for Java and Visual Studio for any .net stuff.

I've recently been trying to use VS Code for Python, I have installed the official Microsoft Python extension but honestly I've found the bare-bones features lacking, one annoyance is that you don't appear to be able to call functions in the python terminal like you can in Pycharm, another is lack of live error checking. Also, the experience has been quite buggy thus far (running python file in terminal often doesn't work). What extensions/tips can those of you that use VS Code for Python suggest to improve my experience?
Thanks 😁.

I Just Finished My First Year of BSc Computer Science at University, Ask Me Anything!

Henry 👨‍💻 — Sun, 02 Jun 2019 19:11:49 +0000

Hi, just finished my first year about a week ago, if anyone's starting after the summer or wants to compare experiences, ask away!

The "Elitist Developer" Debacle

Henry 👨‍💻 — Sat, 25 May 2019 21:56:12 +0000

I recently published a post on imposter syndrome, it has had a far greater response than I anticipated and its reception has prompted me to think further about the subject. I honestly had no idea that my feelings regarding self-doubt and anxiety of ability were so widespread in the developer community, I have found the replies incredibly reassuring and uplifting. There was a broad scope of replies by a number of devs, ranging from undergrads like me, to senior developers and even the founder of DEV. All in all a very positive experience drawn from quite a negative concern that I've been plagued with for some time.

Despite this however, I can't help but wonder if such an emotion appearing to be so prevalent amongst many clearly talented developers is perhaps indicative of problems in the developer community at large. Obviously impostor syndrome is a complex feeling and I'm not suggesting that elitism is the primary cause at all, just considering it as a factor in cultivating an imaginary standard that a lot of devs hold themselves to. I wonder how many aspiring devs have been put off programming/development because of these fears. Also, it should be noted that I'm certainly not talking about DEV 😄, I don't think I've seen single toxic comment in my time here, I think it's a wider issue.

During my albeit short 3 year(ish) tenure as programmer I have come across a fair bit of elitism and gatekeeping in various communities, both online and in the real world. We've all seen the overly snarky and arrogant Stack Overflow answer to an innocuous/reasonable question. We've all either been witness to or baited into engaging in the infinitely tedious "my language is better than your language" non-debate. We've all probably been sneered at for our hardware or software platform of choice at some point or another. I can see how to a newcomer getting into programming that the process could seem overly difficult and the online community overly abrasive.

I've definitely encountered this to a certain extent in education and the real world as well, though I doubt its something that would fly in a work environment. Which brings me to my next order of business, discussion! To those more experienced (or jaded 😝) than myself, is this something that is mostly limited to an online space, or is it something that happens every so often in the professional realm? To those less experienced or of similar experience to myself, have you ever been put off from programming/developing for a time because of this? Bonus points for funniest/most nonsensical examples of elitism/gatekeeping over something really petty 😆.

Dev Theme Update

Henry 👨‍💻 — Fri, 24 May 2019 21:33:06 +0000

I audibly said "if there isn't comic sans..." and sure enough:

Brilliant.

The "Fake Developer" Conundrum

Henry 👨‍💻 — Thu, 23 May 2019 22:14:26 +0000

Hi everyone! My name is Henry and I'm a BSc Computer Science student currently approaching the conclusion of my first year at university (also, this is my first blog post 👋). The primary goal of this post is to discuss a feeling that I often get and to reach out to you all to see if it's common amongst my fellow computery people.

I've been programming properly for around 3 years now and I feel I have fairly extensive experience in VB.net (from college/high-school), Python and Java (both learnt on my current course). I love programming and the first year programming module has by all accounts gone really well, I even managed to achieve 97.5% on my latest Java project submission 😁🏆.

Despite this however, I still find myself worrying often that I'm not a "real developer" and would struggle in a professional environment, as I don't currently have any real-world experience in the field. I also don't have very much experience working on bigger projects. The programming projects I've had to do thus far on this course have been quite simple as it's an introductory module and I had over 2 years coding experience going in.

Is this an issue that any of you recall having at this stage in your developer careers? More specifically, did any of you feel this way at the start of university and if so did you feel better at the end? I'm hoping it's mostly an issue of confidence that will pass once I have some real-world experience under my belt.