The life of a steemit developer: Overview of 14 days after quitting my job
Two weeks ago I decided to quit my regular job and become a fulltime Steem developer/curator/contributor.
Time for a quick overview on my first weeks new routines.
7:30 AM. Time for some excellent coffee.
No more trash, filthy highway restaurant coffee or some pads. No. I upgraded to a french press machine, having a totally relax zen feeling on making my coffee.
I'm using strong beans, not too greasy, not too light, just perfect for my taste. The process of making coffee with a french press is a delicate one, and every step is important. The temperature of the water, the amount of time your coffee grounds wet, dissolute and diffuse, the way you poor the water, really everything. It takes some time to master the process near perfection for the taste you like, but it's worth the time. Did I mention it makes me feel relaxed actually having time to make some fresh coffee?
A very good article about using a french press can be found here
After reviving from the dead (after coffee, ETA unknown)
So after taking 2 cups of coffee, it's time to hit my space key and see my three monitors light up. First things first: Open mRemoteNG, SSH into my servers and check their status. All good? Proceed with checking steemprices.com and update my witness price feed.
Once everything seems fine on my servers, I'll check the witness channel on steemit.chat for possible updates, bugs, or any kind of news that may be important for the network and/or the services I run and provide. After these steps, I'll start greeting people on the chat channels, or in private messages. The steemit chat window goes to my outer right monitor and stays open throughout the day to catch messages if needed.
In a separate window on the same monitor I leave the 'new' section open and hit F5 about 2x per hour to search for new, refreshing and good contents to curate.
Coding time! Well, almost that is.
I currently have 11 projects to complete. 8 of them are steem related projects, 3 others are projects i agreed on before quitting my job. As a software developer, I created my own system to track progress on my projects. Right now I'm using this for about 8 years and it works like a charm. Everything is well organized, and it's easy to see what task I need to proceed with.
A major time consuming step in application development is planning the development stages. Consider it like the building plans for your future house; Without them, you'll just end up with a pile of bricks stacked together that may look like a house, but will fall apart soon. It may have a nice exterior, but some day it will fail you if build without proper plans. So researching, modeling, and planning takes a lot of time.
Time to fire up my favorite tools that my project require, but mostly, I'll use Notepad++ and Jetbrains PHP storm. There are many cool IDE's out there, but for some reason i always return to using those for most of my projects. I love the simplicity they offer, and the way they are build. It's just good software, hands down. No need to reinvent the wheel, I keep using what has proven itself throughout my years as developer.
Isolation mode. Might as well be in jail.
Once I start coding, testing, debugging and all related steps my world exists between my chair and my 3 monitors. The world could seize to exist, I wouldn't even notice it during my isolation mode. Good weather, bad weather, friends, anything has to wait (except the kids) until after my isolation mode.
My keyboard wears out +/- every year, even tough i always stick to the (expensive) Logitech k800 with laser etched illuminated keys. Ink printed keys last only a couple of months until there is almost no ink left on the keys. So I type a lot of text.
The advantage of new technology, new coding languages and frameworks is they save you an awful lot of time rewriting code. In the early days, before OOP, a simple MDI application could hit 25.000 lines of code just like that, it didn't have to be complicated to reach that amount of lines. One of my biggest projects ever had over 410k lines of code, and over 190 different modules and classes. What a mess that was...
Today, we take a script or module with over 1500 lines of code as some heavy piece of code. Be glad you never had to program something 15 years ago. 1500 lines of code did nothing more but saying hello world in a pop up :-)
The 'Wtf? Is it 2 AM already??' part.
Once my but starts hurting, my fingers are cramping up, and I'm running out of cigarettes it's time for some sleep. Every single day I look at the clock and see it's close to 2 AM before I realize i have to snap out of my isolation mode.
So I came to the conclusion that quitting my job actually gave me more work.
I enjoy living the way I do right now. This is what I wanted to reach, this is what I needed!
Even tough I'm working more than ever before, mostly related to Steem projects, I consider myself lucky on having the time for whatever i need it. I do have some responsibilities in life, so it doesn't mean in abusing the free time. I'm using it at a bare minimum to focus at maximum.
So now, lights out, TV on, falling asleep while watching some episode of Mr Robot, and see you all tomorrow 7:30 AM!
Great story! But I really dislike your coffee
Steve, we are alike in so many was it's kinda crazy. Here's a shot of my keyboard, and I go through four a year because I buy the ones that don't have laser-etched keys:
Oh, and while we're talking dev setups.... may I inquire as to the variety of monitor you use?
I've got 2 2k (1x 30" 2560x1600 & 1x 27" 2560x1440) monitors and one 1k (1080x1920) monitor that I'm pondering replacing with a 4k curved Samsung TV. Re: the isolation and the rest of the planet literally disappearing.... yep, exactly. That is EXACTLY what happens to me.
When I started steemit I was also thinking of quitting my job which only gave me $400 salary a month but it turns out that if I do, me my wife and kids will end up nothing to eat because even if I posted original and good quality content everyday, still I could not gain good rewards.
But even so, I still continue to post content everyday hoping that someday somehow I will gain the rewards enough to quit my job.
Juvyjabian,
Ever tried programming? It's like writing.... just amplified. I'm trying to learn goroutines right now.
.
Ryan,
oh, I'd be thrilled sir. I couldn't quite tell you what the trouble is, but the repository is here:
github.com/faddat/ingestron
One thing that I've learned since this post is that I was doing it wrong originally: I should have been using smaller functions. And I'm definitely happy to chat-- my e-mail is [email protected], and the best way to get ahold of me is in fact google hangouts.
That was once a wish in fact my first two courses are related to computers because I wanted to become a programmer but my career turn out differently.
It's never too late to start. If you want, I'm happy to help you with some steemit dev basics, I bet @steve-walschot would, too.
Its nice to hear that @faddat, I would be very grateful
Ryan,
oh, I'd be thrilled sir. I couldn't quite tell you what the trouble is, but the repository is here:
github.com/faddat/ingestron
One thing that I've learned since this post is that I was doing it wrong originally: I should have been using smaller functions. And I'm definitely happy to chat-- my e-mail is [email protected], and the best way to get ahold of me is in fact google hangouts.
Good post! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
The hardest I have ever worked was when I was working for myself. I tended to go the extra mile (often unnecessarily) because I wanted my projects to clearly reflect my ambitions and vision of what they could become (long story short - In the end I burnt myself out badly).
After that I fully understood the value of having a team and joined a company that I felt I would work well with. It's nice to have access to real world tested skills and experience i.e. an actual designer or accountant, also working with a team allows me to forget about admin and focus on my specialty and what I love most :
programmingI would love to know more about your planning system / approach - it would be great if you could do a post on it. I have no issues planning dev for single projects but when there are multiple projects overlapping I struggle. Currently I am re-writing an ancient framework which breaks down into 6 large systems which function seperatley but have inter-linked dependencies and I am having a rough time with planning and getting it onto some sort of time-line.
Somehow I need to get thier individual modules onto a stacked timeline since a single module in one system requires another module in a seperate system to exist before it can be written - so all 6 systems need to built asynchronously at the same time. I was going to write a custom planning system but I am short on time and don't have a clear vision on how to structure it so instead I went with a run of the mill ticket system which keeps track of what needs to be done but still doesn't help with time planning.
Anyway sorry about the essay,
Thanks again for the great read.
- Kurt
Kurt,
My recommendations are:
So, that should give you a pretty clear vision of the structure. However, time planning is another matter altogether, and something that I am not very good with myself. You may want to try something like this, however:
Thanks for the feedback. My main issues are around time planning, as stated I don't have any issue with specs. My enitre office is a white board lol (I got whiteboard paint and painted the walls) , I like your idea of pooling them and think I am going to give that a try - atleast then it should give me a clear indication of when each feature needs to be written, I can then use the estimated time per feature to generate a timeline.
You got it!
That's the way to go, IMHO. Once you've got that central core built, adding the features onto it shouldn't be too tough. And don't forget to multiply by two!
Hi, Steve, consider 'Das Keyboard' or its clone. I know one guy that uses something similar to this and it looks absolutely amazing when I watch him.
http://www.daskeyboard.com/daskeyboard-4-ultimate/
There are no letters, therefore it will not wear out.
And by the way, how do you handle going late to bed at 2AM, getting up with kids and starting work at 7:30 AM? I can do it for 2-3 days in a row but later my effectiveness drops to 30-40%.
Hope your success continues. Its hard making a living in here as it's not guaranteed, one post does ok the next 5 flop.
It was like you followed me around for two weeks:) Exciting times for sure. I think about how lucky I am on a daily basis. I have almost forgot what work is (started a similar journey in April) because perception changes when you are able to labor in freedom.
@mranderson from the SAFE community, I presume?
I like to think of myself from a community of like minded individuals. I find many of them in SAFE, as well as in the bishares community.
I guess we're all like minded people, lols. I love the SAFE community and Steemit, Bitshares I'm interested, but it seems too complicated at times for me.
Bitshares is fantastic.
:D.
As long as you are more fulfilled then awesome!
I my self have not worked for anyone, a paycheck or paid taxes in 15 years. I don't know if I could ever go back to a schedule, commute, dress code, rules, PEOPLE hahaha.
I put in 10-16 hours a day almost 7 days a week. Not all on Steemit but probably a solid 5 hours a day almost 7 days a week these days.
My work is my play. I love being focused and productive with purpose. So "working" is fun.
Wish you the best. Will follow and support you along the way!
Oh man, there are many who wish to do as you do, but a lot got wrapped up in debt
Yes debt is a very dangerous thing. One of countless reasons collage is just about the worst choice to live an awesome life.
I am actually a law and finance specialist and know how to help people discharge most debts. It's a life saver for sure.
I also founded the operation with the lowest carbon footprint in the country and have integrated a self sustain system so my life is super secure and free.
I can focus my time on lots of interesting stuff as it becomes relevant.
Rock and roll, man, good work! I look forward to your posts about, well, everything you've got to say about all of these subjects :)
Wow. Yes there is so much that I want to write about and share of the great wealth of life experience I have.
I really appreciate your interest and support. I commit to putting more time into really writing more in depth important articles on being healthy, happy and free!
talk to @rxhector
I had the same experience. If you are self employed you work more :-)
You Are Busy
I may Try That French Coffee Technique