Hey, this is the Daily Overpass! My name is Eric and I make apps!
Now today, let's answer the question "Can anyone become an app developer?"
So, the other day I got an email from someone. I think they were just finishing high
school or in high school age, and they were asking whether or not anyone can
become an app developer. I was like, "Hey, Eric,
(laughs) can anyone become an app developer or would we'd have to go
qualification or anything? And of course, I had to give the bad news. I hate it
when it falls on me to give the bad news, and other app developers out there
will know this, that becoming an app developer is actually really difficult.
And there's a lot of tight requirements on it. First of all, you have to have an
IQ of about 130 or above. You have to go - to have gone to a prestigious university,
you have to submit a proposal to the app developer tribunal, and they have to go
away. And yeah, write a five thousand word essay about why you
deserve to be an app developer. And then the process could take anywhere between
six months or three years and then if they approve it then you become an
app developer trainee. And then you work your way up the ranks.
Alright, so I tried to think of like a really good story for that. Of course, all
of that's fake. Yeah, yes, anyone could become an app developer. I have to
believe that, right? But having that kind of attitude's not all that uncommon.
I once worked at a place, it was a small company and I worked there as a
consultant. It was a few years ago. This was it for web developers, asp.net
kind of stuff. So, I go to this company and and the owner had called me
and they already had developers.And one of their main developers,
he really didn't like me. But, I mean, that's like normal. Like if you go into
some place as a consultant or a contractor, you know, a lot of the
existing employees will look at you as an intruder. And that you're not
necessary anyway, so you try and like add value. But some of the first people you
have to try to win over is the existing developers. So, anyway he had this theory
that he could take anybody as long as their IQ was high enough and teach them
to be a software developer. Yeah, I could take like a doctor or a
lawyer or something like that and I could treat train them to be a software
developer, but not people who are like you know, mechanics or whateve. I - I
love mechanics. I know they're very smart. I mean, it was completely
ridiculous. I couldn't believe he thought that way. And he was he
was so condescending. He was condescending to everyone, he was
condescending to other people in the company, he was definitely condescending
to me. Or I get - everything you do, like you make one little mistake, (scoffs) (scoffs) right?
But he never made any mistakes, that kind of guy.
And another place I worked I had another - another guy, who was a manager, and he
was the kind of person who was really insecure about himself. So, like you
could say anything to him and he would try to take that away from you, or you
thought you were trying to take something away from him. Like you could
say, " you know, I walked on the moon and he'll say, (scoffs) " I could have walked on the
moon." And you always say he could have
done something. So, could you say like, you know, you could say like, "I'm
gonna go see a doctor," and he'll say like, "You know, I could have been a doctor. I
just didn't go to medical school." Like he gives like some really obvious
excuse you are you didn't do it. And the thng about those two
people, the one who thought you need to have an IQ, and the second one who
thought he could have been a doctor and just as long as you've been to medical
school. The second guy was right. Of course, you could have been a
doctor if you'd gone to medical school, right? One of the things about experience
and becoming things like app developers, you have to dedicate the time
to get the experience. When I meet with the - when I meet with clients or where
people hire me either as a contractor or through Overpass or whatever, I never see
it as they're hiring me because I'm super intelligent. They're hiring me
because of my experience and my knowledge. And both of those things
take time. So, what they're buying is time. I have no doubt that anybody who's
ever hired me in the past, could go through and learn everything that I've
learned, and do everything that I've done, but it would take a long time. For
those of you who are - who have been a software developer for a while, you
know, my experience has always been with which each technology I learned and all
the other developers I've worked with as you start off with HelloWorld obviously
you then you go to spaghetti code and hey it works but it looks terrible you
have a few really bad errors right hopefully eventually you'll get into a
team and learn a little bit of structure and why things are
are done the way they're supposed to be and then you'll get into the more
advanced things like you know you get a structure right but then you get more
advanced things like design patterns interfaces and calculations unit tests
you know decoupled services all that kind of stuff and then that takes that
could take a long time to get there so but every time I meet with a client I
think basically what they're buying for me is my time the same way when I go to
a mechanic I think I could have I could have fixed this car myself except I
don't know I said they don't know how and I don't know what anything does
right but that's like a temporary problem
right and this is the way I've always thought and you know as opposed to the
the the IT guy who is really condescending I don't know if you've
ever been to like like to take the example of mechanic you go to a mechanic
you go to someone who's really just like he'll tell you how it is you'll say oh
yeah that's true you would do this we do this and it will explain everything to
you even if you don't understand it you say okay cool you know it just you the
and or you go to the person who just really you know condescending he thinks
he's much smarter than you and just like whatever right this is the same way when
we deal with clients as always thank you they could have done this but what I'm
giving them is time I'm doing it faster the same is with companies that already
have developers they might you know calling around or whatever I'll say you
know we do app development there's oh we already got some developers or web
developers or whatever enough so you know well deal that's really good
because but they there's a learning curve with apps so your web developers
could do apps but here's a little bit of learning curve curve I have no doubt
that they can do it but it'll just take a bit of time and then we help shorten
up that distance of time because time takes money and it could be more
expensive doing that than it does just harness that kind of stuff so I've
always believed anyone could learn anything but and I think the reason for
this is because you know because I speak Chinese so yeah I've told the story
before when I was in high school my greats were really really bad I did not
do well in high school in fact when I got to the end of high school when I
graduated back in 1990 yeah it was the the choices for me were continue working
in McDonald's I worked in or joined the military and university was something I
didn't even think it was smart enough to do I had like real
confidence issues they're just because of the bennett grades when i actually
did go to university i did fine it did really well right so so you know went to
the army recruitment office and I said you know you're really good at learning
languages and I thought you know I'm not I failed French right and then they said
yum they said no this test shows that you're good at languages we'd like to
send you to language school and I said can I learn Russian and they said yeah
sure that should be fine we can't guarantee it but yeah I'm sure you'll
get Russian right and then when I got through basic training went into the
army towards the end of basic training that everyone got their language of
science at least those are when the same job that I was which is linguist and
they told me I was learning Chinese right and that was the kind of thing
where I thought I am not smart enough to learn Chinese I am NOT I cannot learn
Chinese but of course you know everything is possible with you know
time and you know time and money time and experience right so it was going
through and learning all the tones and then the different vocabulary straining
senses together learning the the grammar and then your you know a few years later
I'm sitting in a in Shanghai with the head of a software company discussing
how overpass can help them right but it's all just the time to stuff like
that so anyway really rambling on on this one the short answer is yes anyone
can learn to be an app developer if it's something you want to do just don't let
it deter you I don't think it is you know you have to think about software
languages it's not like binary the people who write the languages want it
to be easy enough so that most people got that first of all it's not so easy
that it's inflexible but also that it's um it's not impossible for people to
understand so anyway that's it for today I hope that's been useful let me know
what you guys think do you disagree with me do you think you have to be super
smart to be a software developer or do you think you just have that the time to
stumble about learn everything read everything you can work with other
people and just really get good at it through experience making mistakes and
and just progressing so anyway that's it for today that's it for this week I will
talk to you guys on Monday