This morning I put in two teaspoons of black tea to my tea cup, which is double of my usual amount. I wanted to have it after breakfast, but today is a hectic day so I skipped it and didn't have the tea until 1pm. I'm a caffein-sensitive person, and the tea now makes me wide awake at 12am. The side effect of this is that I started to have million thoughts in my mind. Usually, I would read to avoid blue light. But tonight I feel like writing something down. Recently, I find it a great way to calm down my train of thoughts.
I have been a Software Developer for more than a year now. Most of the time I feel like I'm on the cloud of happiness that I found my passion. But sometimes I also have self-doubts and moments of insecurity because what if I'm not worth it for the job or if I'm not good enough for people in the team. For those moments, I have to remind myself of reasons why I love coding in the first place, so that I can focus on what really matters to my career. And here are something that I could think of.
Coding motivates me to keep on learning
When I code, I face with problems all the time. Every time I bump into one, I have to google, read documentations, watch YouTube videos, I have to take online courses as well. Apparently, it depends on each problem, but in general, coding helps me a lot in forming a good learning habit. I'm not trying to idealise this whole coding thing, but the fact is I read more, learn more and meet more interesting people when I started my coding journey. For me, it's an endless circle of learning and I'm extremely grateful for that.
Coding brings me the excitement of solving problems
I remember that I loved solving maths, physics and chemistry problems when I was in year 12 of high school (although now I forgot most of the things I learnt back then). Before year 12, I studied because I had to do it, but there was an event which ignited the interest for those science subjects, which I might talk about in another blog. Now, when I code, I feel the same excitement of finding the answers for the problems and makes things work. I guess it is because I love solving problems and the idea that I am capable of doing it.
My life is much better
Coding helped me find a job I love with a nice pay so I can afford my living in Brisbane city. It gives me opportunities to meet with great people who forever changed or will change my life in a good way. It helps me to be more productive and creative. Coding also makes me focusing more in my life in both professional and personal aspects. I have more purpose and sense of direction in life when I code. Again, I'm not idealising coding or software development career. There will be many obstacles and challenges that I have to face with. But at least for now, that's how I feel about it.
Coding motivates my knowledge sharing
One of the main reasons I made this blog in the first place is to share knowledge, share what I know about coding and software development. Before, I'm reluctant of doing it, because I think everyone out there is genius. I am still very new to this software development world. I don't know if my sharing brings any values to other developers.
However, in the past it was a bit scary for me when I first join a team and there was not much information about the platform, the products and other technical instructions. On the other hand, when I'm stuck on something new for too long, my team mates would come to help me up. It's really awesome when you get helped. And I realised that they would have to do it again and again when new people come to the team.
So I thought, it would be nice if new devs like me have materials and guidance ready for them in writing or in videos so they'll be able to help themselves while current devs can have more time to focus their daily tasks. So every when I work on a new problem and then find out a solution or get an answer for it, and think it would be helpful for others, I will definitely spend more time to write it down in Confluence or my notes to share it later. Even with very simple things like how to deal with git issues which for experienced devs might be piece of cake, but for me I still found it valuable and wrote it down.
Over time, I shared quite a few how-to docs and other documentation. Surprisingly, new devs in my team find it useful as well and they have been also contributing immensely to the knowledge base for our team. And I'm happy that the knowledge sharing circle serves people well.
Coding helps improve my writing skills
This is not a direct benefit from coding itself. But as I said before, I have been practising my knowledge sharing. Most of the time in writing. So, I have to write it in a way that people can understand. Sometimes, I feel terrible when I look at what I wrote a few weeks or even a few days before. My excuse is that English is my second language. However, I really want to improve my skill so I asked other people for feedback on my writing, and I pushed myself to write more with Confluence and now this blog. Over time, I feel a bit more comfortable with writing things down and feel my skill has been improving a lot.
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