Tales of a Dev - An Alternative Reality
It’s been a little over a year since I realized that I work in the desert (a term coined by Kent Beck), and I understood why some things that are so useful and cool in the forest didn’t work when I tried to bring them into the desert.
Talking to people outside my reality
So I decided to talk to people who are outside my reality to see how their day to day works, what new pain points they have that I’ll never experience in the desert because I’m dealing with more “basic” problems.
Learning from open-source friends
For a while now, I’ve been talking to people I work with on open-source projects (e.g., seed4j.com), and even though the project is incredible, it’s impossible to apply it in the desert where I work. I was fascinated to learn how they use it in their daily routine. It’s not just exciting because it’s something sophisticated; it’s genuinely useful and makes the day to day less stressful and overwhelming.
Replying to a newsletter
Recently, I received an email from a newsletter (I’ve subscribed to several), and what caught my attention was the frankness of the writing and a genuine invitation to reply because the author was interested in talking and getting insights from other people’s perspectives. I replied, and I’ve kept talking with him, someone who, in my opinion, works in the forest. These are interesting conversations that help me discover new things that my reality would hardly ever provide.
Catching up with a developer friend
On top of that, I had the chance to talk over a video call with a developer friend I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. I was impressed to discover new areas where a developer can work, areas I didn’t even know existed. In the end, it felt like a conversation with a longtime friend. It had been a long time since I’d spoken English, but I felt so comfortable that at no point did I feel that speaking English was getting in the way.
Back to Seed4J CLI
I decided that I’m going to get back to working on the Seed4J CLI, but before that, I decided to reach out to other developers who use Seed4J to understand how they use it day to day and to learn a bit about their work routine. Surprisingly, a developer has already replied and supported me, saying that creating this CLI application might be a good path so that the AI can autonomously understand which features Seed4J has and use them whenever appropriate, making the experience more transparent.
Motivation boost
This contact with other people in the software development industry, people living realities different from mine, gave me an extra boost of motivation. And the fact that everyone treated me with so much kindness and attention made me feel good.