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hi everyone I am Gabrielle and I'm a
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software engineer at tree gecko
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Singapore no we don't do a trading we
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don't sell desserts we are SAS company
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doing inventory management and I wasn't
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planning to mention this but since
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Elijah mentioned in her tech baby stuff
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yesterday I postponed university to work
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full-time as a software engineer because
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I realized I work I learned to better
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doing things hands-on so you I wish my
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parents were clapping as well so you can
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say that I'm community thought because
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everything I've learned is from reading
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Doc's reading block pools watching talks
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attending meetups and conferences like
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this it's also on a thing that people
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had tradegecko because they were the
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ones who helped me grow from a really
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scared 18 year old who didn't know what
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I was doing into a stronger and less
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scare software engineer they didn't dumb
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anything down but they let me take
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ownership of everything everything like
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building features doing massive
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migrations performance tuning and
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basically just challenged me to grow so
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quick plug we are looking round growing
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out to you so finally if you are
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interested okay so before getting into
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programming I did competitive track and
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fuel and portfolios I did this event
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where I spring for intro meters and jam
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open 10 hurdles and then I became
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smarter and fun even where I run 15
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meters and joong-won bar
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so when I started programming I wondered
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is there a training plan that I can
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follow to get better I realized that
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there are principles of athletic
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training that can help me become a
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better programmer and I'd like to share
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four of them with you so the first is
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cross training for high jump I thought
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my charity of the training would just
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jump over the bar like 10 hours a week
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mine fact only 10% of the time was spent
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high jumping and the rest were on
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weightlifting for strength Huddle's to
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contort my back into strange positions
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and Sprint's to increase speed so it
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turns out I had to build the supporting
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skills to become better at my main skill
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of jumping over the bar so what's a
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programmers main skill this varies for
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everyone but usually it's more than
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technical abilities no point if I build
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a super complex fast that no one wants
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to use our nose house to use because it
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doesn't solve their problem if I build
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it but it can scale to handle thousands
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of users so we programmers do so much
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more than just writing clean code we
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also need supporting skills like
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requirement gathering UX and design
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principles DevOps
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and interpersonal skills I love the
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point byakurai yesterday that the code
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is to communicate and think about all
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the times you've struck out the name of
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function or name a class or how to write
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your PR comment of nicely so that you
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don't offend the author why do we do
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that it's because communicating well in
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those areas helps us help saves us from
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misunderstandings and time fighting
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fires
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so cross training all these skills helps
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us to become stronger overall however
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when we are training so many skills
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there's the danger of losing focus which
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brings me the principle - you can't
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improve what you don't measure for
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training I had a notebook where I wrote
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down what I did that day the timings and
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Heights I jumped and how I felt so
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because I wrote it down over time I can
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see improvements both quantitative like
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the increase in height that I jump or
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qualitative like I
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no longer feel like I'm dying when I
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finish a hot training so I wonder the
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track my progress as a programmer and I
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also had a programming note book I wrote
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down what feature about fix I worked on
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what I learned how I broke down a
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problem and when I missed any
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considerations or use cases over time I
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can see improvements like last time I
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had to draw mind maps to map out the
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function calls and now I can visualize
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it in my head I know this is JavaScript
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but you get the point I'm also thinking
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about more considerations like usability
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scalability and performance when
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deciding one solution over another so
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the third principle is progressive
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training and recovery if I keep lifting
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the same weights week after week will I
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get stronger no I'm not going to
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progressive training means increasing
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the difficulty of exercise and so that's
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always slightly challenging but your
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muscles get stronger during exercise
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they actually get weaker because the
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increased stress causes muscle tears and
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you feel these as muscle aches after you
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finish a hard workout and state muscles
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get stronger during recovery when they
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heal from the tears and become stronger
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than they were before
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so with recovery this cycle of getting
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weaker then stronger repeats and overall
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we become stronger on the flip side with
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insufficient recovery our bodies cannot
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heal and will deteriorate in performance
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so recovery is just as important as
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training for the training to be
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effective so there are three levels to
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recover from as at the let the us at the
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leads the recovery from training means
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time away from training the rest and for
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us programmers this we should also
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recover from technology which we use all
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the time how many times do you use your
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check for nadir guesses 10 I see 10 so
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the average person checks it 85 times a
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day and it's twice more than they think
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they do so we spent we spent so much
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time subconsciously using technology and
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then struggle to find time to do the
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Apollo other priorities so maybe the way
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for us to be masters and not slaves of
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tech is to disconnect the second
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recovery is from competition season so
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athletes commonly taken offseason break
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after their major competition to freshen
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up mentally and physically this seems
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counterintuitive like why would you take
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a break just when you've reached your
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peak performance this is to avoid
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pursuing or hitting a limit to doubt for
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improvement a break allows them to come
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back better fresher to create a higher
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trajectory and hit a new peak similarly
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for us the after intense periods there's
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physical and mental limits to what we
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can take the way to increase that limit
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is to take a break and come back with
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fresh perspectives and increase our
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capacity to handle more the third
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recovery is from injuries or when
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happens so once when I was injured I
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wanted to be tough and continue training
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by got scolded by my coach because I was
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doing more harm and it was my
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responsibility to do everything I could
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do recover and get better even if it
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meant not training so in our tech
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culture though when someone asks how's
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it going the default answer is
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okay good compounded with our Asian
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culture but not very good at
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acknowledging when we're not good and
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when and taking the steps to recover
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then we see articles like this and this
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last year I had two friends commit
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suicide in the video before I had
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another friend commit suicide and I wish
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it didn't take such a tragedy for me to
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start caring and I also hope that you
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don't ever have to go through such a
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tragedy to start taking action the
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responsibility is on us individuals in
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this community to look out for one
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another to know the science and seek
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help for ourselves and others the fourth
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principle traffic others so in long
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distance races runners run behind each
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other to save energy from fighting air
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resistance this is called drafting and
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so a race strategy might be for members
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to take turns being the front-runner so
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that the rest can conserve energy and
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last a long race so the whole pack runs
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faster together than if they each ran
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alone this reminds me of our rails
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community where there's such a strong
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culture of building one another up
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whether it's contributing to open source
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libraries entering on Stack Overflow
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writing blog posts and organizing
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meetups when we help one another get
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better which improves our ecosystem and
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helps ourselves get better for those at
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the front of the pack
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that's all you creators maintenance and
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mentors of the community thank you for
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breaking the winds for us and no I can't
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do it
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not fun I mean breaking through the
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status quo to build this community to
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introduce new ideas and fight resistance
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that comes with anything new thank you
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yeah thank you for blazing new trails
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for us and thank you on behalf of
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then for those of us who are writing on
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the winds of others let's not forget
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who's helped us to get to where we are
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and as more people join us it's our
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privilege to lead and teach them if we
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embody the culture of learning and
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sharing well we can trust they'll help
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us one way or another whether it's
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directly from the people that we helped
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or indirectly like the industry having
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cool great truths like having self
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flying wheelchairs transport us around
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the world when we are old and wrinkly so
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wrapping up what are you training what
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supporting skills can you train how are
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you training how can you measure your
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progress and are you having enough
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recovery to make your training effective
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lastly who are you training with who's
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helped you to get to where you are and
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who can you help to get better I'm just
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a young developer that's very grateful
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for this community who's welcome and
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thought means so much and I hope we'll
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all play our part to continue building
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this community if you have any questions
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just find me later or ping me on Twitter
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thank you thank you so much Gabrielle
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that was amazing
