Thursday, October 25, 2018

Own Your Skills

In September 2017 I gave a talk at the Pacific NorthWest PHP conference (PNWPHP). "Using PHP and JavaScript to Design a Better Board GameThe board game I discussed was Strengths and Troubles.

Meet Pup, the PHP-Women elephant I was given at the conference.

This fall that talk morphed into an article for php[architect] Magazine. "Rapid Prototyping a Board Game with PHP" was published in the October 2018 issue.

Recently, I was interviewed by the magazine for a php[architect] podcast episode. You can listen to the podcast here PHP Architect Podcast Episode 14. If you're not a PHP geek you may want to click here to hear my interview only. They really let me go on and on. My interview runs about 28 minutes.

Own Your Skills

One reason programming is so deeply satisfying is that it's creative. 

The fact that programmers are creative is lost on most non-coders. There was a widely held idea that our main job was to add a line to a form for a bank or other client. Graphic artists are supposed to be the creative ones. The app explosion demonstrates programmer creativity although many believe that's just about making millions.

My main point in my presentation, the article and the podcast is that having skills like PHP, MySql, JavaScript and HTML5 or any other languages allow you to be creative on your own personal projects. 

Suppose a skill you possess is knitting. Do you wait around for a paid knitting gig? No. You think about the striped socks your girlfriend's been wanting and get to work.

To quote Simon Sarris' final comment in the code for his HTML5 Canvas Tutorial,

“// Now go make something amazing!” 






1 comment:

Jan said...

Creativity seems to be at the heart of what you do by combining your skills. And you are very good at what you do!