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Code Like An Introvert, Communicate Like An Extrovert
A solo developer has spent most of the time as a single element with the idea that he is self made and that he thrives better doing the business of zeros and ones alone - A lone wolf. He alone, he is on top of his game. I fear many introverts fall into this category, they like it being alone and they feel more productive in their lone zone. Everyone will get to that zone at some point if you are in the business of writing codes but that is not the end, there is just so much more to it that enjoying the comfort of loneliness with programming juice. I will share some cons of being a solo developer by sharing the benefit of not being a solo developer.
The Blessedness of learning and discovery in lone
The human being does more introspective and perspective search on their being when he is alone, It’s comes with ease keeping our focus with less people around us since distraction could be managed properly and more work could be done that way. So being a solo developer is neither a bad thing nor the main purpose of this write up is to invalidate being a lone wolf but more could be achieved with a team or group or friends who are developers.
Benefit of using the public like @swyx suggests
A major benefit that community of developers gives is the benefit of turning that lone developer with less people to access more networks via meetups and conferences. The first community I joined was the freecodecamp community where all the business was done online and you could ask questions and get immediate response which in the end saved me some time compared to waiting on yourself to debug alone on your own. “Your net worth can be determined by your network”. Trying to step out of that comfort zone is not that bad after all.
Learning in the public
Let’s assume you need to learn a new framework or library and you have a friend who know and use it regularly, what will be the best approach to learn this. Some will prefer to go alone on their own and learn it to be better than their friend but it will save more time if the friend explains to you to set you up for further learning. Building one or two example with such framework or library with expose you to more than you can ever get alone on your own in hours of learning.
Opportunities
The benefit of opportunities, I will only recommend someone I have worked with for a Job offer or contract gig or freelance because I am sure the person is good at what they do and because that are in my circle, we have done somethings together. When you don’t have anyone you know then such opportunity will not come to you.
Working with a Team
Coding alone might be good but coding with a team is better since much work can be done, peer code review can be done. We can build thing faster if we do it with a group of people with the same positive mindset. After getting my first full-time job offer after a referral from a mentor, I had learnt a lot on my own and taught a lot of beginners as well but working with my new teammates have taught me more in the past 3 month. Especially the code-review and talking about a problem together. Just like a “problem shared they say is half solved”.
Final Advice
My advice is to be able to manage both situation properly. To always have time we work alone and knowing when to ask for help will give you more in terms of result. “Wolves are have their strength in their packs”. To level up you need people who can help the way you code. Coding alone comes with the risk as pointed out by Jeff Atwood’s article.
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Written by Oluwasetemi Ojo Stephen {...OOS}, A FullStack Developer (Reactjs, Nodejs, Typescript), currently lives in Osogbo, Osun State Nigeria with my lovely and priceless Wife Temidayo .🎈
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