Blogging has long been on my todo list — quite frankly too long. A colleague shared a great piece by Troy Hunt named “The ghost who codes: how anonymity is killing your career”. Troy inspired me that I need to make the time to just get it done. So this is where I start giving back whatever small knowledge bits I may have.

I am fortunate enough to be with a company now that encourages professional writing, which hasn’t always been the case. Troy’s article really resonated with me that developers have an insatiatable appetite for consuming knowledge. We take information all the time, and there’s a duty on all our parts to give back and not just take. Thanks to both Troy any my colleague Alex for pushing me to do more!

Many years ago I learned an metaphor from a very accomplished veteran of the US military that is quite applicable to coding: “you have to either be tough or smart to succeed”. Say you want to navigate from point A to point B, and there just happens to be a tall mountain between the two points. The tough guy takes a straight line route, ardously ascending and descending the mountain. The smart guy circumnavigates the mountain, saving time and energy.

I know developers like to be the smartest person in the room, but, I am self-aware enough to admit I often fall into the “tough” camp – hacking into the late hours until the job is done. I suppose this blog will be a true measure of how many (or how few) smart/clever ideas I have up my sleeve!