Become a better programmer

The C# is going pretty well so far. For me it’s not so much the language I think as getting used to the OOP stuff. I’m chugging along though and actually made a pretty usefull application today. Yeah for me! :)

I started out programming Perl apps with mSQL. Moved on to Perl with MySQL. I eventually moved into PHP and that is where I ended up staying.

I got out of coding anything for a bit. I became a QA Analyst and the coding part fell to the wayside. I am now a Software Test Engineer and my job will be to write apps to test software. I will also be doing code reviews. As they say Testers are developers.

I will be moving out of PHP and learning C# in the next new months. Any new tools I write will be in C#. I will also be porting over all the PHP programs.

I’m quite nervous but an opportunity of a lifetime just fell in my lap. I NEED to seize it and do well. I have to stop the self-defeating thoughts that creep into my mind. I will get amazing training and support, now it’s all up to ME. That scares me. It’s often easier to look back on what coulda been than to actually take the shot and be in charge of your own fate. Yikes.

Since I have been doing this for a career for the past 6 years. It’s not something I have ever felt confident in and that sucks.

This is why: I went to college and took a two-year course. It was jam-packed with everything under the sun. None of the teachers ever worried what the code was like, just that your program worked. It could have been the ugliest spaghetti code on the planet, but if your program ran and functioned properly it was all good.

I graduated and got my first job. It was a small shop where time was money. It was just get it done, don’t worry about the code. The structure, the documentation, how efficient it was, didn’t matter. Get it done and get us paid. Small shops are great for experience but not necessarily great for doing it right.

Next job same thing. I was programming custom-built intranet applications but I was the only one there with that role. My boss was an IT manager, knew nothing about programming. Again, time is money, get it done. I really made an effort to try and document and do things better but when 50 people are breathing down your neck it’s not really practical.

So here I am. I’ve done some super cool projects but have never felt confident in my ability. I’ve earned a pretty good living but have always felt like a fraud. I hate that. I want to do this, do it right and feel like I am worth my pay.