I don’t consider myself a “creative” – I think that term is usually designated for designers, artists, and illustrators, and other types. Developers – although we create things – are creative in a different way.

It’s more about problem solving, I guess.

Anyway, one of the things that seems to be the most common among people of the similar trade is the challenge that comes with having to solve problems that we’re stuck on during the daily grind.

I can’t speak about designers (though I know this is something that affects those who I do know), but in terms of developers, I know that the problem works something like this:

At some point during a project, we get mired in a problem and we’re unable to solve it. The more we try to solve it, the more the frustrated we get. Ultimately, we step away from the computer, but what happens in a few hours?

We end up solving the problem while focused on something else.

It’s an interesting thing, and it’s something around which plenty of research is done (and, I’m sure even has a proper name for it), but the point of all of this has nothing to do with mentioning the fact that this exists.

It’s how we – as developers or even those creative types – can leverage it to our own success. Continue reading

As it relates to developers, it’s been said that certain sites provide a paper trail of the work that we’ve done since we’ve been working in a professional capacity.

For example:

• How many times have you heard that GitHub is your CV?
• Or what about the idea that your blog is a paper trail of your thoughts about the work that you’ve done and/or the industry in which you’re involved?
• Or perhaps you’ve even heard that sites such as Stack Overflow (or any of the other Stack Exchange sites) provide some type of portfolio or journal that provides a glimpse as to the type of information you’re after, and the type of information in which you’re well-versed.

From the outset, I think that the overall idea behind each of the aforementioned points is well-intentioned, but I’ve rarely – if ever – heard an objection to the premise that these sites provide a true CV for a programmer.

That is to say that no one seems to take account that one of the – if the the  – largest factors that stands over each of the points above: Time.

In short, I don’t believe that any of the aforementioned sites (or related material) serve as a CV. If anything, they serve as a documentation of our history in what we’ve been doing.

There’s a very big difference between the two, and if we end up thinking that they provide us with some type of CV, then we may run the risk of missing out on really good contributors, developers, authors, and so on.

Continue reading