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Schuster Braun for Vets Who Code

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The Dev Grind is Real

I'm a social media junky and there are all these dev lifestyle accounts. A lot of them put on this fake veneer of happiness and ease about work. But, that's not been my experience.

I wanted to make this post because this peachy perspective is actually detrimental to those joining the industry. I got boot camp students who are afraid to push incomplete git commits because they don't have a shiny veneer. They're afraid to share their authentic selves even though that's the most valuable thing they have.

We should normalize how hard development is. That's why I'm a huge fan of the Developers Swearing Twitter account.

Developers Swearing Twitter account

It normalizes that we're out here struggling and it ain't all peaches and rainbows. Sometimes development is banging your head against a wall a whole bunch and then asking for help and it finally clicks. This is normal and in fact healthy.

Here's me troubleshooting build issues

A list of build issues on September 2nd

What a great green box on my git chart

Github contribution chart with 36 commits on September 2nd

You can tell that the day of September 2nd was not fun.

In the end, troubleshooting doesn't mean you're a bad developer. I propose the opposite in fact, because once you get out on the other side usually that knowledge won't go to waste. It's okay to bet on yourself and not always be perfect.

Top comments (3)

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Clifton Beale

One of the things I love about this industry is the troubleshooting. While it can suck to bang your head on the wall for hours over one issue, it is always very rewarding once you solve the issue! Plus it's always nice when you learn something new

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Preston Neal

thanks for sharing that twitter account. almost spit out my coffee laughing when I started reading those tweets. great stuff

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Schuster Braun

Glad the coffee is safe