Building up a career

In programming environments, as in life, people tend to do things that are already done by thinking they will do that better or simply because they don’t know that’s already done. I face it usually, sometimes in the middle of a development I realize things could have gone easily if we did more previous investigation about existing tools. I promise myself I won’t fall again but that’s not as easy as it seems.

What I’m talking about is to use existing frameworks or libraries to get a final result. If your intention is to learn the basics of some system isn’t bad to try to implement something almost from scratch. For example, I’ve known several developers like me that enjoy getting videogames done, but there is some kind of virus (very extended) that forces that guys to implement (or at least try to) the entire game engine. That’s not a problem if your intentions are getting a job in the game industry programming game engines, but if you want to get a game finished, that results in the hardest and almost impossible way to get it done. You can choose between open source engines ( Irrlicht or Ogre for example) and when you’re more experienced you can try to invest money in some commercial engine like Unreal Engine.

But also there are other entry levels to game development. I knew about it some time ago and I didn’t care of it. But now, with more real experience in my shoulders I have started to see the advantages of creating mods for games. One of the most clear examples is Unreal Tournament 3. This is a know game, not the style of games I use to play, but it has a extraordinary feature: you can modify it and play what you change!! Well is not that exactly but it’s close. I leave for a future article a detailed explanation of mods and what is required to start with them.

For now I hope you get the point of reusing valuable resources and that you won’t try to reinvent the wheel too often.

Have experiences about this topic to comment, go on, let’s discuss!!

Popularity: 20% [?]

“The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008″. This is the announcement made by the Mozilla Foundation.

If you have previous versions of this navigator or don’t know it, go to SpreadFirefox.com and pledge to get Firefox 3 during Download Day to set the Guinness World Record for Most Software Downloaded in 24 Hours. You’ll contribute to set a new record and you’ll get the best navigator you can get nowadays (sure that’s my opinion, but also the same opinion that have millions of developers around the world).

If you are into web development, don’t forget to follow the W3C standards so that you’ll make sure your information will be available to the most possible people. Avoid using Internet Explorer exclusive tags and test your webs with more than one navigator (Firefox, Opera, Safari, Explorer …). The worlwideweb will be a better place if you follow this guidelines.

Popularity: 30% [?]

One of the things that helped me know what I know was my passion for books and my curiosity to learn new things. I think that every programmer that cares about the future should read, at least, one technical book every year. It is part of our jobs to keep informed about new technologies and to learn as many subjects as we need to carry on our projects.

Unfortunately this is not how the vast majority of programmers behave as pointed out in “Programmers don’t read — But you should” . I see it every day when I talk to other developers, people don’t try to get updated, they only care about their election of language or technology. Yes, current developers still think that they choose what they will use in projects. It could be that way, but doing so will limit you to a small number or real opportunities.

By writing all this I don’t mean you have to learn about everything and start searching any job you could find with any technology involved. It happened before in my article called “Be proficient in one programming language” that some people confused some advice for novice programmers and started arguing about whether it is good for experienced developers to follow this approach. What I mean is that you should keep in mind to learn whatever you think will be useful for you and also to pick the best source to learn from. This requires selecting the appropriate book to buy and avoiding monkey-written books with titles made from the pattern “learn yourself XX in YY days” and similar.

By investigating a little bit around internet you’ll find a bunch of mythical books that almost everybody agree to recommend, here you have a short list that helped me a lot when starting in this field:

• Dive into Python

• Game Coding Complete

• Thinking in C++

• Thinking in Java

• The pragmatic programmer

What books did you read recently? Post them so we can discuss about them!

Popularity: 60% [?]

I’m glad to say that this blog has been included in the programming section of alltop. Alltop is a sites directory that shows up the most interesting feeds for several topics in one place.

Things like these are very rewarding for me as this makes me realize that people find this blog interesting. I’ll keep writing useful articles for those who care about your future in programming/development and want a fast-acces guide for your career.

If you find this blog useful send me an email at buildingupacareer@gmail.com and also tell me what you feel I can improve!

Popularity: 71% [?]

The most important thing I learnt in my life is applicable to all fields, from sport to job and personal relations. There’s one thing that differentiates good developers from brilliant ones and that thing is passion. Yes, passion marks differences in whatever you do.

My experience is based not only in my career as developer but also in my career as professional athlete. Through the years I’ve been involved in a rollercoaster of emotional states moving from the excitement and happiness of victory to the loneliness and sadness of being injured. The main reason that made me arise from difficult situations was, is and will be the passion I feel for what I do. That makes me perform my 110% when is needed and also helps me keep an optimistic vision of the future although living a dark present.

But there’s something not to forget, the real catalyst of passion is persistence. Many people get confused thinking that doing things with passion will output effective results, far away from this passion can be a two edge blade. One can rely on it for achieving expected results but failing at keeping up a correct working pace. That, in the end is the key of success.
What you need to accomplish targets is being disciplinate and persisting in getting the final result. Passion is what keeps you working with the same excitement as the beginning and is what makes you get involved in what you do,is what makes you persist in getting to the right result.

And how can you find passion and consistence? easy: doing what you really like,  avoiding working in projects that doesn’t motivate you, guide your future career towards some target, don’t let yourself fall into monotony and wake up every morning with enthusiasm in what you do.

And you what do you do to get motivated and to get results?

Popularity: 100% [?]