Webdev from Zero to Hero in 3–6 months? You have to be agile! (3 of 3)
We have reached the end, the third article of this small series! If you have read the previous ones and you are still here, it means that you feel you have within you the necessary qualities to carry on this training path (and in general, any other training path).
In case you missed the second article anyway, here it is: let’s talk about how and how important teamwork is!
But let’s get into it.
Don’t let the girl above scare you — you don’t have to be a Yoga enthusiast to do this job! The agility required of you will be mental.
In the field of computer science, there are countless ways and commands to achieve the same result. Very few times one solution is better than another: the most important thing, usually, is always having a clear and clean code.
This is where the agility mentioned above comes into play: now it is no longer a question of absorbing the concepts, but more of making them your own! Whether you’ve found help from a colleague, from Google, or from a coder who does 24-hour live coding on Twitch (yes, they exist.), the important thing is that you understand what you’re watching, how to use it and why.
“Stealing” a snippet (a smaller piece of code that can be used in a second project) is not taboo in the field: the primary goal, however, is to understand the mechanism of the code, and then replicate it and modify it according to your needs. From that moment on, that snippet will also be a bit ours, we will have used it, changed it and maybe even improved it in some ways.
That is the intermediate point of arrival for the beginning of the path: to deal with agility the problems that the code puts before us, in every way, letting yourself be guided by errors and understanding what you are doing to solve them.
In this last period I had the opportunity to face the simulation of a team work project (remotely), the purpose of which was to present a functioning ad site, respecting given characteristics.
In a team of four, we designed the entire graphical interface and site features, respecting what were the requests of User Personas (fictitious users created to represent a type of user who could use a site), which they required us to be able to carry out a given type of action in a certain way.
Therefore, every morning, the team was called to dissertate what they had done the day before and what they planned to do during that working day. The need to present in front of the whole class (to the company, in a working context) during scheduled demos a site that is increasingly functional in relation to the required user experience, has pushed us to always give 110% of ourselves, but never result in a frustrating work experience! Once it even got late into the night, until 2:30 am, with all the teams helping each other.
“Anyone who has lost track of time when using a computer knows the propensity to dream, the urge to make dreams come true and the tendency to miss lunch.” — Tim Berners-Lee
In the completed project, therefore, there is something about each member of the team: the final site is the result of the artistic taste, intelligence, knowledge and stubbornness of each one. And not only the project was enriched by diversity, but also ourselves: everyone was able to get to know a different point of view, learn something new, teach, improve.
And I believe that this is the quintessence of agility: being able to tackle the problems that the code puts before us, looking at everything from different points of view and acting in the best possible way so that the project is at its maximum level.
While there are more “routing” programming languages, a dogmatic approach to coding is rarely a good choice. This is also what you must find within yourself: the ability to absorb errors, work around them and then solve them.
On the other hand, the machine simply does what the user tells it to do.
P.S.: So! We have reached the end of this small path. First of all, I hope it was useful to understand if you want to face a new part of your life. Feel free to tell me your doubts, your experiences, give me advice or criticize me!
If you are curious, on the other hand, about the project I was talking about, here below you will find a video of just over a minute with the main features of the site. If you want to discuss it, it will be a pleasure for me!
Thanks for making it this far! Usque ad sidera! To the stars!
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6796143839980736512/
