DEV Community: Santos R Jimenez

I get it now....I think.

Santos R Jimenez — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 15:47:00 +0000

Have you ever been in a room full of people, giving a presentation, and had no idea what you were really talking about?

If you said "yes" to yourself, then consider yourself human.

"No.", you said? Well, you'll soon realized what imposter syndrome feels like.

Imposter syndrome to me feels like when you try to impress your friends at a cookout and you want to show off some cool trick you've learned about 5 mins ago on YouTube. Though you feel like you could pull it off, because it looked so easy, you're more pressure to stay committed to the group because they're all staring at you now.

The regret is so strong, it almost drowns your soul.

However, you're just that one friend in the group who keeps the morale high.

And you're going to fail, hard.

What Imposter syndrome teaches us is no one in the universe harbors all knowledge. Hell, there are still debates in the scientific community about what Albert Einstein dreamt up during a ride on a train. Even he threw his own work in the trash(he later went back to retrieve it after realizing what he discovered).

This is a major issue as some theoretical physicists today also think Max Planck smallest unit of measurement is not actually the smallest.

Even the greatest minds are always questioned.

I emphasis this one bit because in the software community, debates are the reason why we have so many different types of tech stacks just waiting to be picked apart and sewn together to create a monstrosity of communication between its backend and frontend.

cough "C++".

I think it's safe to say you're quite insane to believe you could pull off a trick to explain each and every detail about your own tech stack as a junior software engineer.

This field of work is designed to help you fail; so you can dust yourself off and give it another try.

And this is okay. This is how we grow and learn from those mistakes. Failure is the product of great theories and design.

Even the brightest individuals have their moments of despair.

Back-End Movement no. 1

Santos R Jimenez — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 16:04:54 +0000

I realized that the back-end of an application can be quite a messy experience. The shear amount of information absorbed is absolutely overwhelming.

Fortunately, there is a beautiful melody playing in the background as I navigate through the contents of an application.

Sometimes, you can almost hear it.

This orchestra(we will call it The Back-End symphony) is the heart beat of the front-end experience. The Back-End symphony changes while improving on parts of itself. It never rest till its a well oiled machine. The conductor(myself) gives the implemented technologies a purpose and helps navigate each through a well define path.

Once assemble, the application can harmonize with its counterparts.

Oh, how I wished this was as simple as stated above.

Back-End is a nightmare, but a beautiful one. Its a challenge I've been seeking for many years. I realized how much time and effort is needed to just figure out what back-end technologies best suits a particular situation.

This is why I am so interested in computer science.

Its the vagueness of what one technology can do better than the others is what keeps the conversation moving among software engineers.

Its the innovations and discoveries that were made while keeping the software engineer engaged and interested in the future.

And, I want to be a part of that world.

Its hard to say what technology I will be focused on in the next year or so. But, whatever it may be, I am ready to take on the challenge.

I'm new here. Please handle with care.

Santos R Jimenez — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 21:08:42 +0000

Welp, I made it.

As a kid growing up in the 90s, I always admired the computer programmer. To a 10-year-old, its magical. And I wanted to learn how to do the magic things.

The first book I picked up unveiled the ugliness of code.

I just assume that whoever wrote the book was from mars. No one I knew spoke the way the book presented itself. Honestly, I could not grasp the concept of this magic.

So, I gave up.

Many years later after failing to graduate art college, I made my way back to my hometown. I took this time to reevaluate life. After working in the IT field for 6+ years, I decided to give it another try.

This time it was different.

Something inside me wanted to understand that ugly code. Honestly, it was the hardest topic I've ever tried to study. So far, I am enjoying the challenge.

And so, I've decided to become a software engineer.

My software engineering apprenticeship has been very rewarding so far. I am one week in and I'm enjoying every moment. It feels so alien to be a part of a group of like-minded individuals. Hopefully my journey will lead me to where the grass is always greener.