The Best Programmers Are Constantly Learning.
The best programmers are constantly learning and we only fully learn when we share. This is why we need conferences like GDevCon N.A.
This week is GDevCon N.A., so lately I've been thinking a lot about why. Why do we put on conferences like this? Why are they important to attend and support? What function do they serve in the community and the ecosystem? To me, it has a lot to do with learning and sharing amongst the community.
Continuous Learning
Life is really a series of experiments. We try something. Maybe it works. If it doesn't we take what we learned and go devise a new experiment and try again. The whole time we are learning. This is particularly important in the software industry. Technology changes so rapidly. The only way to stay on top of it is to be constantly learning and adapting. As Allen says in his tweet below that really is the core of the whole agile movement.
If I look at the LabVIEW Community as a whole over the years, we have definitely learned some new things. When I started 15 years ago, many LabVIEW developers were not using Source Code Control. Now it is considered standard practice. The community as a whole has learned that Source Code Control is essential. You still encounter some developers not using it, but they are the exception. I see the same thing going on right now with Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD). It isn't quite standard practice yet, but it is quickly spreading. I also see Pair and Ensemble programming on the horizon as well, starting to pick up some steam. As a community, we are definitely learning and evolving.
Sharing Is Essential to Learning
Which brings me to sharing. Sharing is an essential part of learning. It is very difficult to learn alone. We need other people to bounce ideas off of and to help us digest and solidify the learnings from our experiments. Which brings me to the quote on the mug above.
Leaders are learners, and what is learned is only fully learned when shared.
I got that mug when I joined a group called the CIO Mastermind group. When they sent that mug to me, I knew I was in the right place.
Why GDevCon?
Which brings me back around to my original question - Why GDevCon? It provides an opportunity for the community to get together and learn and grow as a community. It also provides an opportunity for individuals to share their individual learnings with the community to help solidify their learning and understanding while at the same time building the general community's body of knowledge.
