Confessions of a dev [2020-09-30]

The notion

As a developer, we often work in fairly stressful/high pressure environments. This is part of the course when working in an everchanging industry especially as the rate of change seems to be increasing. However, I've noticed that we often have have an added pressure put on us.

This pressure can come from ourselves or from others, but it often stems from the ridiculous notion that Developers have to know everything about the area the work in. Not only that, but they should know about all of the surrounding elements that interact with it. This notion is completely unrealistic and it puts undue pressure on us.

So today, Wednesday 30th September 2020, I'm keeping a record of things I've had to google/lookup. These could be things I've done plenty of times before, or things I'm doing for the first time, but the point is, my brain can't recall how to do them. This doesn't mean I can't do them, just it might take a little longer than if I could recall it straight off the bat. At the time of writing this intro, I have no idea how long the list will be. It might be 1 item, it might be 100, we will just have to wait and see.

Things I had to google/lookup/reference from somewhere else

1. How to tell an Umbraco NPoco database table model that it's database column has to be "not null"
   Note: This is done using the following attribute [NullSetting(NullSetting = NullSettings.NotNull)]
2. How to tell an Umbraco NPoco database table model that a column (not the primary key) must be unique
   Note: This is done using the following attribute [Index(IndexTypes.UniqueNonClustered)] (I think)
3. How to construct a Delete Umbraco NPoco query when I want to delete a batch of items based on their Id being in a list
4. How to create a custom dashboard for Umbraco
   Note: Great docs on this can be found on Our.Umbraco.com.
5. How to set up permissions on a dashboard for more than one User Group
6. How I add values to Umbraco.Sys.ServerVariables I do this a lot, for pretty much any custom back office controller, yet most times I have to look it up, be it on an existing project, or by referencing my own blog post!

The day ends

So, today I had to look up 6 things, or at least these are the ones I'm consciously aware of looking up. Every single one of these things I've done before more than once (except point 3, the unique index, that was new). People would assume that I know how to do these things off the top of my head, but I don't.

As developers we do so many different things, jump between projects, thought processes, meetings, calls, everything. It's a never ending mine field of interruptions, learning new technologies, evolving existing technologies.

If you are a developer reading this, and you beat yourself up about not knowing things. STOP .

I mean it, stop right now. You will learn things, you will forget things, but at the end of the day being a developer means having strategies in place to help you find information and solve problems. It does not mean you know the solution to every problem at the start, if it did everyone would do it.