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At my old job we hired a junior developer. Turned out the junior knew more than all of us. I learnt a lot from him and it pushed me to update my knowledge and skill set!10
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My boyfriend.
He's an amazing software developer, has a few more years of experience with me, and because he's not a colleague, I feel comfortable asking him dumb questions. Combined with his patience and willingness to explain things very thoroughly, it's helped my post college learning immensely.
I love that I can cook him dinner, and then go to him with a code smell that I found at work, and spend the meal discussing ways to make cleaner code. I'm not sure who the real winner is in that situation. Probably my employer, haha.23 -
Not only in my work, but in my life.
My biggest inspiration is the popcorn seller that patiently stays outside the subway exit, standing, every fucking day, from 4-5pm until 0-2am.
He stays until after the subway closes, and only leaves after everyone waiting for their Uber or their ride do.
In the rainiest day of the year, he was there.
In the coldest day of the year, he was there.
In the worst crisis of our country in the last decades, the region became temporarily infested by bandits and beggars. Sometimes I had to work overtime until 11:30pm and I had to be very cautious with all the robbers in the empty dark street. But guess who was there, sometimes calmly saying "get out, go work" to the bad elements bothering him?
I find it reallybfunny and refreshing when everyone is inside waiting for the rain to settle down, while he is standing in the middle of it. Or when I'm coming home really late, and he is still out there freezing cold.
There is no excuse for not doing your best. Life sucks sometimes, but there are no excuses. Just work hard, and laugh at the bad times.
Every time I saw him there, I thought "my day was hard, but I could've worked even harder". At the same time he made me feel better for having a better job, he inspired me not to bitch about any little things.
Then you might ask: "isn't he dumb to stay until 2am even though he is probably not getting any costumers after 11pm?" or "how can someone so unsuccessful be so inspiring?"
Well, I don't know. He just is.
Do almighty, genious people like Steve Jobs inspire me at work? Of course. More than this man? Certainly not.8 -
This might sound cliché, but my dad. I called him Pop. He was a COBOL programmer, and he taught me the fundamentals. He would bring home his work and debug on paper, and I was his rubber duck.
When I got older, we were each other's rubber duck. Whenever I was stuck, he'd throw a suggestion out that might have seemed off base at first, but was somehow related to what I was working on.5 -
My first boss. He sat next to me yelling “Think before you code“, “Hands away from the keyboard“ and stuff like that at me while doing my first few codings ever. He even made me cry from the pressure. Afterwards he bought me a muffin and told me he wants me to be a better programmer than he ever was14
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Stackoverflow
When I was just starting with programming I used to google a lot (more) of my problems. But just just copying them made me feel guilty, since I could not handle the problem myself. So I decided to analyse a code to the point where i understand exactly how it works. Sometimes it took me a couple of hours to understand a method, which was written 1 or 2 levels over my current level, but it was totally worth it. I learned a lot about Java, how to write cleaner code in general and how to read and understand code quickly.
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When I first joined the profession, I had a mentor who refused to give me straight-forward answers to my questions / queries. He always had the same answer, "Google it. Find the solution yourself." I hated him for that. Sometimes he used to explain that it was for my own good (blah, blah, the usual stuff) and not because he didn't know or couldn't give me the answer straight-away. I still thought it was just that I was too smart to ask all the right (complicated) questions and he didn't have the answers.
(Of course, that is a bit too exaggerated; he used to help me out with complicated stuff when he knew I was blocked and couldn't move further; he wasn't a sore mentor; he was a good one, in his own way.)
Several years later, I find myself giving the same answers and advice to juniors I mentor. It turns out that push to figure things out on my own did me a lot of good. I'm able to approach any problem head-on and not freak out even if the specs or the deadlines seem surreal. I know how to "figure" answers to problems that I come across for the first time. In the process you learn a lot of stuff that "keep you ahead of the curve and not grow old".2 -
A supervisor in my first job , he also taught me to pick up girls in bars.
Hell he picked up a girl whilst I was throwing up on a train 😂, literally right next to me 😅 talented man
He made me want to be better then him at programming ... Not picking up girls. So now I am and got my own company doing it ... All due to a strange bromance15 -
Honestly? People. For the first two years of my career I worked for an investment bank.. Basically working to make rich people richer. That, plus the technology sucked, made me change what I do.
I now work for a company that, while it doesn't cure cancer, it makes products that my friends use, my family uses, even my 1 year old son uses. And knowing I am making a difference in their life in even just a little way is worth it.
Also now that I have a family and a kid, my priorities have shifted and as much as I love coding, my family and kid will always come first now. Could I be making more at an investment bank where I worked 12 hour shifts every day? Sure. But it's not worth it to me.3 -
I once explained to my teacher that i had trouble getting started with programming after a longer break and wondered if he had any smart ways to get into programming again. He smiled and explained that:
"There are no great ways to get into programming, the trick is to never really get out of it".
Best tip I've ever gotten.1 -
Bob Tabor.
He is one of my favourite tutors. Fell in love with C# after starting with his videos.
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A little late, and similar to other lovely ladies on here, but the greatest influencer for me is my husband.
He's always pushed me to learn more and be a better, cleaner coder. He taught me continuous integration, introduced me to the Atom editor, and showed me that my nerdy interests and choice of career can actually be quite attractive and not "intimidating" or "inappropriate” for a woman.
He's my go-to hackathon partner, my strictest code reviewer, and my life long teacher.
Ich liebe dich, mein Schatzelein! 😍7 -
My bosses...
Honestly, I give them shit over here for their errors, their actions and the fact that they don't know what's going on. But as they've been my first programming job, they've taught me a hell of a lot.
I started my internship about a year ago at my current job, and it would last for 4 months.
I was timid, did as I was told and didn't discuss orders.
Within a week, I started voicing my opinion whenever it was asked, and I was heard, and if it gave insight, the bosses would listen to me and we'd change the product.
After two weeks, one of the bosses wanted to show me a comparable website on my pc so I could get some idea of what the bosses meant when trying to explain their idea, and after five minutes of typing on the shitty keyboard I had (shittiest in the whole office), he asked me why I didn't complain earlier. Truth was, I was afraid, he was the boss and I was just merely an employee at his company. Who was I to criticize his office materials??
He told me to follow him, we got into his car and drove off to a shopping mall, went into the tech store and he literally told me to pick whatever keyboard suited me best.
A few weeks ago, we got active noise canceling headphones, these things cost a hell of a lot of money!
My senior and my bosses have taught me that I am still an individual, still a part of the team, of the company, and of the machine, if I can't do my work, the rest will suffer.
They taught me that I am valuable, that I am not just another employee and that I need to speak up for my needs, wants and opinions.
Don't forget how valuable you are guys and gals :)8 -
My code!
Looking at the previous version of my code, pushes me to write a better one! All the time!1 -
Bob Martin. His books Clean Code and the Clean Coder, and all his talks on architecture, SOLID and TDD. I could listen to him talk for days, and he taught me everything i know about writing clean code.2
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My dad, who doesn't know shit about programming, but knows absolutely everything about perseverance and motivation.2
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My dadddddddy, he got me a computer when i was 6/7 and i used to go on it everyday (mostly ms paint drawing the most bullshit stuff 😂 and pirating games like gta vice city 😍) and then when i turned 10 he told me about programming and he introduced me to scratch loved tht shit😍 so i started teaching my self VB.net , the regular beginner copy paste and then when i was 12 i finally learnt c# and i downloaded unity, unreal engine and cry engine and tons of others but stuck with unity and now im just waiting for school to finish so i can start to do programming with out being interrupted by homework🙄18
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The devs I work with. One more so than the other, but seeing as this is my first dev job, and I have no formal training, they've been my mentors. Yeah, we disagree and argue - but they're bloody good quality, and I'm very lucky to be learning from them.
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Former boss taught me to care about the place where you work and how to think always as a team and not just to improve my skill.
Current boss taught me that you can be excellent designing and writing code, bur if you don't know how to transmit your ideas to others in a way that they understand, you're pretty much stuck.
Great bosses so far...2 -
A T.A. in my university.
He's kind of a java expert and the class was about advanced oop principles.
But the way he coded live in class and spoke clearly how he approaches the problems was the best thing that I got from the class.
Needless to say, nearly everyone that enrolls in that class, starts to love java afterwards xD1 -
My first manager : "You will never be a programmer! Network guys don't know shit."
That was after working as a MCSE for 2 years (that was for NT4... fuck I'm getting old) for this asshat and maintaining their servers and fixing their crappy sql.
Worked and studied my ass off... now I manage a team of 40 developers... and I still love coding!2 -
I'm from New Zealand, and was working in the business side of things but really wanted to learn more tech. Saw a course in the states I really wanted to do, spoke to the admissions person and they said I can initially do a 4 week course then a 8 week bootcamp. Decided I would go but turns out I needed more "experience" when I spoke to one of the instructors.
Was super disappointed I had travelled all the way to America only to be denied a place, but the same instructor said if I did all the tasks she gave me I could get in. 2 years later I'm a full time dev and will never go back.
Really appreciate my instructors belief in me to go the next step, my life would be so different (and empty) if it weren't for her!3 -
Me.
Because every time when I see my old code, I begin to criticize it and think how can I improve it. -
Sure, there were always people who influence me. Actually, I like to feel when superior manager or officer could help me to develop myself.
Nevertheless, there was one man who opened for me this "Pandora box". He was my first computer class teacher. I was 10. After next two years I got my first money for localizing ZX Spectrum games.
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wk22| Tom Scott,
I just love watching his videos. Its always inspiring and getting me into a somewhat good mood.
Even the non tech related ones.2 -
Lately it's been DevRant. Honestly. I sometimes lose the drive to learn. Then see newer tech people are using on here and it reinvigorates me. So DevRant.1
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Einstein supposedly has a quote attributed to him: "Perfection isn't achieved when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove."
I find that I aggressively refactor code where I can to only what is absolutely required. It does also have the knock on effect of reducing scope of bugs, when the code is smaller there's only so many places bugs can be.
Tesla claimed to have the ability to create designs in his head and only built things once he was satisfied that it worked in theory first, now it's rare I can do that, but I will use a repl to prototype or test modules in isolation before just hacking on the actual code.
Jobs, I mean, I know he didn't code but he was always insisting on designs that looked good and was generally uncompromising in his design centric view.
My friend, she was my Starbucks barista for a while but I've slowly been teaching her code and she's taught me a lot about how to teach others to code, she also happens to be my favourite student.3 -
Not so much in my work but more my career.
My dad has been a great role model, still is and always will be.
He was an hard working metalworker. He loved his job. It's not a 50k job but he could easily manage his life.
My dad showed me that doing what you love, working with passion, makes your life easier and more fun. You deliver high quality products, because you care.
Since I found out that I love programming, I made it my life goal to do it as my career.
I've never been happier before. After all, I make money with my hobby.1 -
Honestly... I'm my own biggest influence. I had a career shift from law enforcement to developer. I hated my job, my life, where I was at and where I was going. I never want to be in that position again so I got myself to a point where I have more freedom and opportunities.
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My AP CompSci teacher, now 15 years ago, inspired me to always reach further than I thought possible. I was creating neural networks in C++ before my first internship. It was amazing.
I mourned his loss when he passed away, but now I offer him thanks when success comes my way at work. I still feel like he is helping me as my secret angel of software development. -
My first year lecturers in university. They were always passionate about their jobs and programming as a whole that it rubbed off on me. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't be staying up all hours working on projects while there are assignments due. My love of what I do stems from them and I would love to inspire at least one person like they did with me.
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Not really in work as a job, these people inspired me rather in lifestyle and thinking: (these are not quotes!!)
Richard Stallman - you can't be sure the program isn't harmful unless you see and understand the code.
Linus Torvalds - doesn't matter if you like the person or not, let the code speak for him/her.
Raymond Hettinger - there are both stupid and smart people. It doesn't matter. What matters is asking the right questions and providing clean and explaining answers. -
It's not just technical people who influence me. Neil Gaiman taught me how to use my creativity (google: make good art) Susan Cain taught me what it is to be an introvert (google: quiet - the power of introverts)
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My PM ! Yes you heard it right ...he always pushes me to edge of everything and make me strong enough to handle tough situations both in professional and personal life! Because of his guidance I was able to find out skills in me put them to best use..😊3
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My high school programming teacher! He was the one who originally inspired me to do create awesome things with code, and I always think about where I might be if I never took that programming course in grade 11. Thanks Mr. Wong :D
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Shitty co-workers. From bad management to lazy colleagues I've had it all, and all of it pushes me to be better than they are.1
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My uncle has definitely been my biggest influence. My parents never understood computers and refused to buy one. Eventually my uncle gave me an old Win95 box with an 8GB HDD, and 512 MB of RAM(most other people in the world were running XP at this point). The thing was completely useless as a computer to do work on when I received it.
The internet wasn't really a thing yet back then, but I managed to figure out how to clean up the OS, as well as taking it a part and figuring out the parts.
He was the one who taught me that with computers, all things are possible.
From there he was always buying me books about programming, and pointing me in the right direction. He was never one to give me the answer, but always told me where to look or what to ask.
Now I'm the main web developer at my company and I love what I do. -
This talk by Rich Hickey had a tremendous influence in how I approach my work:
https://youtu.be/f84n5oFoZBc
His Hammock Driven Development is my absolute favorite when it comes to work principles in programming/engineering. It also the one that is the hardest to explain to most PMs and leads because it can look like you are slacking off while others are producing hundreds LOCs. That you'll write better, less error prone code that won't need as much QA iterations is something you first have to prove to them but to me, it's well worth the effort.
If you have 40 minutes of time, do yourself a favor and watch the video. Maybe it'll have as much influence on you as it had on me 😃 -
One of the teachers in the Stanford CS106A course videos online, Mehran Sahami.
He got me to change my brace-style. Nuff said.4 -
My biggest influencer? My Web Dev schools psychologist. Always scheduling breaks in our day.
He continuously reminded us it's a positive thing to walk away from the code and change up the brain patterns. -
Good friend, Jay. Helped level up my understanding over the years, JS patterns, using APIs, best practices, etc.
Also helped kill off anxiety about the community by proving we work together and share knowledge.
Many thanks and I hope everyone has a Jay in their life. -
My dad got me an old windows 98 (Still relatively new) with flight sim. I downloaded limewire to download limewire pro. I was surprised I got viruses on my pc, had to ask his colleague to fix it. Good ol' times
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a lot of people
Aaron Swartz, Tim Berners-Lee, Ted Nelson, Raph Levien, Nathan Hurst, Linus Torvalds, Bjarne Stroustrup, Richard Dawkins, J.G. Ballard, William Burroughs, William Gibson, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Donna Haraway, BLACK SABBATH
and the list goes on and on1 -
The guy that influenced me the most was Pieter Hintjens. He came to train us about one specific technology and thrown away basically everything I was ever told and replaced it with something that made huge sense. He wrote several books, really recommend those even if some of them are more social than technical.
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Dr Lanning from I, Robot:
There have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code, that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together, rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote... of a soul?
One day they'll have secrets... one day they'll have dreams. -
My best friends from university. Somehow I ended up with friends who are all better than me in computer science. Thus, I am basically forced to work hard to keep up.
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My coworker, Donnovan, has influenced me the most professionally. Showed me the ropes around HL7 when I had limited coding background. His philosophy of automating as much as possible has been my motto for over a decade, and I make sure I impart that to every new dev I train.2
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!rant
My boss has influenced me the most at work. He was the first person to introduce me to software development. Though I'm self-taught since, I still owe him my career. Now I teach support techs and junior devs how to code, as well as oversee the architecture of major systems. It's crazy to think now that my computer building hobby would turn into something like this, and it's all because someone convinced me to try what I thought would be terribly boring. -
Former coworker, inspiring that he still gave a shit when I had no shits left to give. Also, a comp sci teacher taught me there is no problem that can't be boiled down to small simple problems, that could be explained to a 5 year old. If someone says otherwise, they're either full of shit or they're trying to fill you with shit.4
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An old hillbilly named Bill, who started programming on patch panels in the 60's. Imagine that if you will. He taught me to be persistent, not to fear mistskes, and never take myself too seriously.
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My AP Comp Sci teacher back in highschool. She spent a lot of time making BS assignments to get me out of bad habigs. (Uninitialized variables, public variables in Java, bad documentation, cryptic variable names [x, y, string q], etc.)
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Trevor Payne on @youtube! His series on Python really helped me to understand some of the inner workings of 2.7.x and a bit of 3! He also just started a c++ playlist which I'm excited to check out ( haven't done any c++ in years ).
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For me, biggest influence have been my bosses.
One of them mailed me that my work was shit and he was cutting my pay while I was far off with my father post surgery and battling a terminal illness.
The other one gave me an offer while I fired my previous boss from the job of being my boss. He also knew the exact reason for my switch. That taught me a lot on what kind of person/programmer I want to be. -
Probably my dad. He encouraged me to experiment with the computer really early. He got me a c++ book (I know, the best language to start :D) and we sat down in the evenings programming together.
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My classmate Nicolai who thought me to program. He must be the most patient person in the World! Thanks m8!
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The first colleague who was happy to talk FOR HOURS about topics seen as small/irrelevant/would you stop you annoy me/gtfo.
Some heroes don't wear caps! -
The community of RPG Maker. They made me begin to code and know I got a little skills everywhere thanks to them!
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After my trainig period in the new job (10 weeks), I joined a different department with very expirenced guys, one of them got my mentor, with him I was at my first plant (continues casting platn where next to me where thousands of kg molten steel) where we updated all controllers to a OS. From him I learned all the real life best practice stuff as well as the internal dev tools.
Without him I would not be able to be mentor to my new college now.
And also he became a friend
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I would probably say my cousin.. We cultivate a unique back and forth that generates a powerful bidirectional influence beam. @blackmarket
There are, of course, other honorable mentions.. past/current co workers, ect..1 -
My peers in college. All the way, if it weren't for them I wouldn't know what github was, esp my friend Gabe who really opened my eyes to many fields.
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Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle
Joe Armstrong - The Mess We're In
Jonathan Blow - Ideas about a new programming language for games
I think all my biggest influences are people I've never met... sad.1 -
I started programming with C# for a Windows Phone 8 app for my dad. Never finished it, but it sparked my interest for programming.
And mostly because I want my friends to say something like:"Wow, you're super cool" or something like that.(FAILED)
Now I work with C++ and I'm proud of myself, so I basically inspired myself to take on programming. -
my dad who gave me his old pc when i was 10years and the desire to understand whats going on in this machine.
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Very specific for r, but Hadley Wickham wrote tons of stuff about how to build packages and has inspired me a lot. He uses a lot clean code practices and writes very clearly.
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My boss (in a good way). Both in my workplace and out of the work place. He's given me a lot of fantastic opportunities to learn on his time. He has encouraged me to do so because he saw my passion and love for programming. I'm incredibly lucky and blessed beyond belief to have him as a friend, and my manager.
He's the Senior Director of Network Services. So anything dealing with networking he's in charge of. -
My older brother and my current "boss". My brother introduced me to the CompTIA A+ Certification years ago, and my current supervisor has trusted me with projects that I never thought I'd be working on.
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Also my Science Teacher who quoted Einstein. I don't know anything unless I teach it to someone. I wonder, do rubber duckys count?
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Notch, the creator of Minecraft was my biggest influence.
He did what he loved to do and inspired me to do the same. I discovered I wanted to start programming because of him.
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