The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

How do I do

Dear Friends,
I read some wonderful things on this forum and I think it's great forum of its kind.

I am your average programmer/developer. I enjoy programming from my good tech background. I work days in and days out and having good job in a small company for few years now. On average, I am satisfied with my current work and my boss is good.

I have good amount of freedom on work without having much pressure of daily work. I surf the web, read new things, post in forums and learn new technology etc...

What I think that my progress is slow for technological work. I am not using my talent as much I have. ie.. If I have to ask a question myself what did I do today, my answer at night is always the same. I programm to do something and make it working.

One thing for sure. I don't have frustration of soemthing not being working. But I think that it is not enough. I want to achieve technical milestones that I can be proud of.
For example, something ike google or yahoo. I think that I have talent for the same, but I don't put in practice. In fact I cannot start work on my own which I can finish.

I would like to have suggestions.

Thanks,
Developer

Developer
Thursday, February 5, 2004

1. you have to quit your day job.
2. you have to find one or three other folks who share your idea. systems like google require more than one person, even if only to bounce ideas off of. very few successful products are the result of one person working in isolation (even if only one person is credited).

Thursday, February 5, 2004

> I surf the web, read new things, post in forums and learn new technology etc... What I think that my progress is slow for technological work.

So, practice more and surf less?

> In fact I cannot start work on my own which I can finish.

So, do it with other people.

Christopher Wells
Thursday, February 5, 2004

It's like exercising. You know it's good for you, and maybe you've actually experienced how good it makes you feel afterwards, but you just can't get yourself off that couch... without an exercise partner. Two people can feed off of each other's energy in a positive feedback loop.

Like what the other folks have mentioned, you need to find people in your company who are restless like you. Ideally you'd want to work with them in an official capacity, but if not, it sounds like your situation allows you a lot of free time. Find someone at work and spend your collective free time together doing some skunk work project.

Every work enviroment could benefit from internal software tools to boost productivity. It'll let you work on your coding skills, your architecting skills, and user interface design skills. You're basically a small company within the company, designing a product to satisfy your "customers" needs. 3M and Google officially allow their workers x% free time to persue any project they want, which has the chance of being turned into real company products. Projects that succeed are the ones where a leader emerges who convinces others to spend their precious free time on it.

Anyways, the key to motivation is having an appreciative audience, and that's what your partner is for. You say you're in a small company, so it might be tough to find someone. You might have to look to a programmer community in your area or someplace online. Maybe work on an opensource project. Though in the end, nothing beats face to face.

Best of luck.

VP
Thursday, February 5, 2004