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Becoming A Developer Is A Process

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techweb

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Version Control Added to My List!

Today I started seriously learning Git. Why? I'm tired to manual version control, and I enjoy adding new skills to the list of things I've learned to become a developer.

Becoming a developer is a process

No one seems to tell you that there are many great ways to manage your code that don't involve making tons of backup directories manually in Finder. Well, no one told me anyway. As with many things in the world of development, version control seems to be a simple concept that everyone is already familiar with, so no one talks about it. I'm not complaining, just pointing it out. Putting this mental note down on my blog for later reference.

So much to learn

I take the time to note this stuff because I want to stay consciously aware of all the seemingly minor things that I learn as I continue to improve my development skills. I was talking to my friend Nick recently about this and he said something along the lines of:
Welcome to your new life. You will have epiphanies about every three months.
Becoming a developer means continually learning, and so far I love it.

The road traveled so far

I think this is a good opportunity to think back on the road I took to get to where I am now. I learned HTML/CSS about two years ago, before taking an long hiatus from web work. When I got back in the game and decided to really learn development my list of necessary skills looked like this:
  1. HTML/CSS
  1. PHP
  1. JavaScript (+jQuery)
  1. MySQL
Awesome! I was already 1/4 of the way there… but really I wasn't. Here's the one point I would like to make in this post: For better or worse, no one tells you how much you will actually have to learn to be a developer. My actual list of things to learn indeed had those items above, but it also had things like:
  • PhotoShop (learn design)
  • Text Editor (Dreamweaver is bloated, wanted something new)
  • SCSS (or LESS)
  • Compass (no more manual prefixing!)
  • Setting up Apache locally (I don't use MAMP)
  • Markdown (blogging regularly demands it)
  • Version Control (Git)
There are probably some other things that belong in that last, oh well. However, seeing the extended list does make me happy that no one told me beforehand how much I would really be learning. The task would have been daunting.