Watching how genius coders are portrayed in movies and TV shows, I grew up with the impression that they are smug, arrogant, and often delusional. My experience interacting with them in the last couple of years has proved otherwise.
Be it the TIBCO Spotfire community where even the lead data scientists provide exceptional support and guidance to anyone interested, or the Alexa developers slack channel where patient SDEs answer your questions in great detail – the developer community has proven to be extremely welcoming and helpful. For instance, Justin Jeffress does a marvelous job hosting Alexa office hours on their Twitch channel where he answers questions from developers at all levels of expertise. Similarly, Neil Kanungo from Spotfire hosts great Dr. Spotfire sessions every month helping Spotfire developers get better at visualization and analytics.
Stackoverflow continues to be the go-to for a bit more intermediate stuff and it is perhaps the only place where I’m still nervous to ask questions. However, even there, experts encourage you to learn in the right manner and point you in the right direction to get you started. If you are into Machine Learning, you are familiar with Andrew Ng, the man who is the pioneer of online education and has released a bunch of free courses on Coursera (which he co-founded).
The tech world is extremely challenging and constantly changing. You cannot stop learning for even a bit as you might get outdated in a jiffy. As such, it is reassuring to know that programmers have each other’s backs. Say what you will about these geeks, they can teach you a thing or two about camaraderie. After my theatre group, this is the second place where I have felt a sense of community and belonging. Nobody cares where you’re from and what the color of your skin is. They are all here to learn, build, and sometimes crack geeky jokes. Respect!
If you’re reading this and have ever helped someone understand the complications of programming – take a bow!