Translator: Herylee
The original link
When James Titcumb gave a talk for a conference he was organizing, he pointed out that famous speakers were chosen, relative to the average person, because they were reliable on other things (i.e. they would not cancel). I think “among other things” will be a lot more important – I believe most conference organizers will choose these talks and speakers because they like the safety and fear of risk.
I find this is because the organisers are cautious and can still take risks talking about it 10 years later. t.co/PXRhajhQXi
— Bruno Skvorc (@bitfalls) April 28,2017
Handled carefully
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The number of times I’ve seen a well-known name take a place (and ultimately a “no risk”) in the PHP world is amazing, and it always makes me feel like I’m trying too hard with my submissions. Why are there several speeches in this day of almost instantaneous audio availability? On the second or third time, anyway, everyone can access. Why choose the subject of “safety” – if you don’t push the limits of your own comfort zone, then who are you? Invite discussion, polarization, and disagreement – develop yourself by learning and educating those who disagree with you, finding common ground, seeing things from all perspectives of people, and using authority to prevent arguments from forming. Don’t act like a prophet, but like a human being – wrong, capable of learning, always curious.
When you’ve spent your entire career as a speaker, I think it makes sense to have an evergreen conversation that you don’t need to prepare for. Traveling around the world and speaking from over your head is a very good performance, I can miss McDonald’s continue to serve hamburgers, but can’t miss this speaker in this way. Useful. But even McDonald’s introduces salads or chicken wings from time to time.
Then there’s the “bubble” effect:
@bitfalls @asgrim 90% of the people don’t have Twitter accounts. Never have a discussion like this. It’s the filter foam that makes these conversations seem redundant.
- MalteBlattermann (@Mablae) [April 28, 2017] (twitter.com/mablae/stat…)
I think both approaches work. Accepting the same speakers (in fact, I see the same 10-20 people at every meeting) scares new people away and prevents them from talking about their ideas. Even if the impostor syndrome is no longer overwhelming enough, now they must clear the table after someone is guaranteed to come in.
In these days when “diversity” is actively pushing everyone, the conference world can seem strangely hostile to intellectual diversity. I would like to have a conference that guarantees at least 90% of the first (or first year) speakers – oh, the conference scene would be more interesting!
From nine to five
My perception of the meeting is not the same, this lead us to another discussion, some people think that the conversation is recycled, not because the speaker laziness or organizer of cowardice, but because there are a lot of participants had never taken part in the meeting, and fortunately I don’t know common theme of “PHP7 new function”, “why use Composer”, “Good OOP”, “What is TDD”, etc.
@Bitfalls @Asgrim Someone hasn’t seen a chat. They are sent to a meeting with the “boss” in the hope that they will learn something useful.
- MalteBlattermann (@Mablae) [April 28, 2017] (twitter.com/mablae/stat…)
It doesn’t make sense to me. If an employee has never attended a meeting before, and the employer ends up dispatching them, doing a Google search on the topic being presented, their speakers and recording their previous conversations will be trivial. Why do employers send employees to conferences, most of which are offered for free online, knowing that employees have no interest in self-improvement (since they’ve never attended meetings, obviously)?
Arguably, this conference may be a first, but let’s get real – we’re talking about PHP here, and it’s not about anything groundbreaking.
Bosses may also want employees to meet new people there, perhaps recruiters, but that’s not a role for beginners either.
All of which raises the question – what kind of developer isn’t interested in self-improvement? Marco Pevita has this to say:
@BitFalls @Mablae @Asgrim This is very common. More than 90% of developers work nine to five. Of most clients I work with, I am the only one who goes to meetings/does OSS.
- Stereotypo? (@Ocramius) [April 28, 2017] (twitter.com/Ocramius/st…)
It’s confusing to me
You come to work. You know your assignment. You finish them. You went home… Repeat the next day? If it’s not exactly a job, and there’s a lot of downtime, how can such a developer keep up and recommend best practices or new approaches to the boss to improve the app, or claim some leadership and advance their career? As a result, they didn’t:
@Bitfalls @ocramius @Asgrim There was no such situation in my last job: stuck in PHP 4.9/5.2 habit, “laid back until it seemed to work” style.
- MalteBlattermann (@Mablae) [April 28, 2017] (twitter.com/mablae/stat…)
Wait, what? That’s bad.
To stay relevant in our field, we have to keep learning. We need to actively seek out new technologies, learn about them, and decide if they are worthy of attention. Not only do we need to assess their potential to solve future problems, but we also need to re-address these past problems with new potential solutions in order to come up with better approaches.
A developer after five o ‘clock in the afternoon to stop development, especially if work inadequate innovation, lack of personal freedom of expression in the solution, will establish a good muscle memory, remember the core functions and inconsistent argument order, will be able to nail it all into the shape of a nail, then put the nail into anything, no matter whether the board. But such developers will never become software engineers. Such developers will not be able to succinctly come up with new solutions and approaches and influence the company in a good way.
time
I get the “I can’t help it, I’m married,” or “I can’t help it, I have kids,” or “MY time is precious, I want to spend some time doing what I like.” Time is one of the most precious resources we have, and it’s even more valuable when you’re with your family.
However, I firmly believe that we are in a tech bubble, and the amount of money you make now can buy you more time later than the amount of time you spend directly now is equal to one. It’s all a matter of balance, of course – moderation in all things is important – but taking time to learn, improve and adjust your time (AND I’m not talking about it 24/7, but a few hours a day in the long run) – especially if someone enjoys it – is an asset worth investing in. If you don’t like learning new things about your job, what job do you put first?
In my opinion, you should not run away from selling your time until you have enough money to buy more time than you sold. But you should charge a lot for it.
@BitFalls One trick: Charging more leads people to think you’re more “authoritative”. As an employee, be prepared to be ignored. / cc @mablae
- Stereotypo? (@Ocramius) [April 28, 2017] (twitter.com/Ocramius/st…)
conclusion
I think a 9-to-5 developer can be a good developer, or a good programmer, but not a good software engineer, or a good community member.
Developers who want to stay in their field and advance in their career must learn. They need to learn in the long run and realize that the time they save and spend their “lives” now will be wasted tenfold in the future if they learn to improve themselves and advance their careers now, when they will need to spend enough time to achieve higher returns.
It doesn’t even have to evolve – there are more ways to learn than those programming at 5 p.m. Read tutorials, write tutorials (and make more money on the other hand), attend conferences to talk to others and hear different ideas (excellent conferences like WebSummerCamp even have a peer program so you don’t even have to leave home) — there are plenty of options for every aspiring developer here.
How do you feel about the conference and recycling talk with the same speaker? What’s the fate of 9-to-5 developers? Do you keep learning when you go home, or do you drop everything? What’s the end of you? Explore!
_* Figure it out? Disagreement! And, as an unreliable person, I learned a new reason behind some of the meeting symptoms I was seeing.