Comments on: When You Do It Right, And On Time

By: Derrick Grigg

Derrick Grigg — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:07:50 +0000

@jesse great post and I 100% agree however I think you are missing one important piece that goes hand in hand with the experience plateau. It’s like Donald Rumsfeld said “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. ”

Being confident in what you know and knowing what you don’t know, but not letting what you don’t know stop you from doing what you don’t yet know how to do. When you can grasp that concept and realize you will never know everything you can become a much happier and content developer because you are no longer chasing the eternally moving carrot. Instead you can become focused on doing the best you can with the resources you have available at that moment and also work towards enhancing those resources and abilities for future use.

By: saumya

saumya — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 05:23:12 +0000

Can not but agree. Its a truth and truth is always hard to face. But for right attitude nothing is impossible.
Nice post. I have already spent more than 5 years and I do not think I have reached that milestone yet. About deadlines, yes, I do agree it gives a lot of confidence and satisfaction when its finished, and still there is someone on the back of my mind saying, we can do the codebase better.

By: Neil

Neil — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 08:20:43 +0000

I too feel that I am reaching that plateau, I’m fortunate enough to work with a couple of really focused developers who always strive to improve, whilst looking out for each other.

In my 4.5 years in the industry, it seems to me that design agencies still think that flash developers are just knocking up animations with bits of code here and there. The don’t realise that AS3 is now a serious language, and that means developers are writing applications with ever more complexity. We are constantly having to keep up with what ever is the latest buzz, PureMVC, Papervision, AIR the list goes on and on.

One of the most important aspects of a project is the initial gut feeling about the timing you give to your project manager. You sketch a few diagrams, look at the components, maybe code up a prototype of your unknowns, then you give then a figure off the cuff that you BELIEVE is possible. What you tend not to do is consider the inevitible bugs and workarounds that will surface. My advice in reaching the plateau is you are in charge of this, do not be put under pressure to do something too quickly, I know this is not easy but giving yourself that little bit of padding will make you feel so much better as you start to gain momentum.

Finally, we are a fantastic community, always looking out for each other and posting about problems in blogs, not to show how good we are, but in the hope you can help another developer avoid the pain you went through with a problem.

By: Jay Moretti

Jay Moretti — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 23:09:13 +0000

Can say that I’m somehow getting close to reaching that milestone right in my 5th year as a Flash Dev for the advertising business (AKA HELL!). Every time I commit changes to my component sets/framework, I tend to refactor a few classes just for improvement and not with the feeling that ‘I’ve done it the wrong way’. Getting better all the time I say.

That post was of great encouragement to me. Thanks a lot!

By: JesterXL

JesterXL — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:56:22 +0000

...maybe it takes 10 years? Well, the hours I worked allowed me to do it in half the time apparently.