The inner conflict of being a dev.

“The inner conflict of being a developer”. What does this title convey you may ask. Well, this title implicitly implies the conflicts of being or becoming a developer. In the world of programming, the writer(which is you) is the antagonist and, the debugger(which ironically, is also you) is the protagonist. The relationship between the two of these roles is quite astonishing, due to the constant imbalance between the two; I sometimes refer to this relationship as the force(from the star wars trilogy) or, some may be more familiar with a comparison to cops and robbers.

Whaaaaa..!! cops robbers and code!!!

Don’t pass out just yet, let me explain! First, let’s review the classic relationship between cops and robbers. In most situations, there is the protagonist(The superhero) and the antagonist(The villain). Now you may be wondering why I am explaining the Dramatica theory in a software engineering blog. I mention this theory so that I can express the inner conflicts a developer experiences. Given the cops and robbers and the relationship they harbor, we can assume that the cops are the protagonist and that the robbers are the antagonist. Now close your eyes, imagine a comic strip without robbers, what would the cops do? Nothing, nothing at all; This reveals to us that the cops are no longer needed. Even if we were to remove the robbers rather than the cops, we would still lose the other. In conclusion we cannot have one without the other.

The explanation

Now, what if I was to tell you are the cop and the robber; This is how I would explain the inner conflicts of a developer. For example, when writing code I become the robber; as I write code, I commit crimes and create mysteries for the cops to solve. When I finish writing some fine lines of code, I become the cop I carefully inspect the code I have composed; If I find any mysteries left behind, I investigate them and solve the case; Otherwise, I am debugging and reorchestrating the poorly written lines. Thus proving that I am the Luke and Lord Vader; This relationship illustrates the inner conflicts that a developer encounters daily. This means as a developer you will carry a constant, self v self conflict. Due to this, the problems that you may encounter can be more detrimental to your self-confidence than any other and, you may experience increased frustration due to the sole purpose that you are creating the very issues you will face.

How would this affect a newcomer

This self v self conflict that is experienced throughout the community can be very toxic and intimidating to a newcomer. Why and, how you ask; Well It can be extremely frustrating because you are creating the issues you face. This can cause a lack of self-confidence and lots of frustration. A lack of self-confidence is the worst possible thing you could encounter because, if you don’t believe in yourself you are already at a disadvantage; This is because, if you are attempting to learn these concepts with a lack of confidence you are setting your self up for unneeded putdowns and frustration. How could you as a new developer prevent this u ask don’t worry i’ll cover that next.

Tips to balance the imbalance

So you want to know how to deal with the frustrations of coding and overcome the concept of being your own enemy. When coding you must keep in mind that everyone makes mistakes from a simple typo or to forgetting a whole method. You must keep in mind that you will run into mistakes and that it is ok for these occurrences to take place and, when these you find yourself in these situations remember that even the most amazing developers still get stumped just like you, also never put yourself down no matter how hard it gets. Welcome to the club join me and the other 0.5% of the earths population in knowing how to code. Always remember code on my friend