Self-improvement

Posted this to facebook, but then decided I wanted to put it somewhere more public to keep me accountable.

Although I think that teaching myself to code and creating a career off the back of it is probably one of my biggest achievements in life, I can’t help but feel that all this time spent as a solo developer – for myself, for past work places (99% of the time), and now for myself again – has actually really held me back.

There’s no peer review when you’re own your own, nobody to say “Jem, that code is bloody awful”, nobody to chivvy you along into learning new tech etc. My communication and collaboration skills are piss poor and I actively fought a client recently over involving a second dev because I didn’t want the hassle of potentially working alongside (virtually) someone else.

I have got to fix this.

So that might be my #1 goal in 2014…

5 Comments

  1. Learn ROR and work with me :)

    problem solved!

    • Jem

      19 Dec at 8:56 pm

      Oh yes, I’m sure I have time to add in learning another language too :p

  2. This too shall pass. I have faith of your capability :D

  3. If you ever want code review send it this way ;)

  4. This is something that I could relate too. Possibly one of the drawbacks of freelancing. I do have several plans on fixing this. One of them is to try and get myself in a team of people working at a popular startup so that I can improve myself and learn from other people.

    But I know that you’re a work-at-home mom, Jem. So I wonder what your strategy on fixing this would be like?