On Impostor Syndrome

David Walsh shares some thoughts on an impostor syndrome.  I’m sure anyone in the tech industry can relate.  I certainly do.

“Impostor” is a powerful word but that’s how I have felt during all of my career as a professional web developer. I feel like I’ve learned every day of the ride but I feel like I’m way behind. I feel like people see me as something of an expert where I see myself as an accident waiting to happen. I’m a complete impostor. A fraud.

Apart from the honesty of his feelings, I like his ways of snapping out of it.  They do work for me too:

  • Look at your (hopefully decent) employment history and know that, on a basic level, you’re much more wanted than you’re wanted gone
  • Log onto the IRC channel of a skill you feel comfortable with and answer questions of those asking
  • Realize that people who consider themselves “experts”, and don’t go through waves of self doubt, are idiots that are so arrogant to not know what they don’t know
  • Remember the last time a non-developer friend asked you the most basic of computer-related questions
  • Perform any simple exercise in the JavaScript console
  • BLOG!  The worst thing that can happen is someone corrects you and you learn something out of it
  • Review your code and find little nits to fix

One other thing that helps me, is this bit by Joe Rogan:

He talks more generically about life, but I think it’s equally applicable to technology knowledge as well.

Getting started with workflows in PHP

For a large project at work, we need to integrate or develop a workflow engine.  I worked a little bit with workflow engines in the past, but the subject is way to big and complex for me to claim any expertise in it.

So, I am looking at what’s available these days and what are our options.  This post is a collection of initial links and thoughts, and it’s goal is mostly to document my research process and findings, and not to provide any answers or solutions yet.

Continue reading Getting started with workflows in PHP