Sharpen the saw

I

Imagine this.
You know stuff. Maybe a lot of stuff.

• How long does this last if you don't add new skills and new experience regularly?
• How long before you are being replaced by someone else or worst something else?
• How easily will you get a new job?
• How can you provide high quality services to your clients?

I have met a lot of APEX developers. Many of them on senior level, doing APEX for 10+ years. But many of them also stuck on APEX 5 and Oracle 11g, rarely 12c. Do you realize that 11g is like 15 years old and APEX 5 half of that? You really can't call yourself a senior if you are doing the same thing for 10 years, can you? Do you know how many of these guys know at least one new feature from latest APEX? Or a main difference between 11g and 12c? Zero. One new feature from 19c? Zero.

I also see this over and over in teams:

• We don't have time to refactor the code. We will do that in phase two (never).
• We don't have time to write unit tests. We will write tests later (never).
• We don't have time to do peer code reviews.
• We don't have time to share knowledge with colleagues.
• We don't have time to do a good job. We duct tapes.
• We don't have time to write a BRD but we are rolling out new features with a light speed.
• How about technical debt? That's a non sense, you are not a good programmer if you can't quickly fix this.

If you are stuck at a job like this, you have to take care of yourself.
And probably find a better job.

Can you see the problem now?

You can't rely on stuff you will learn by just doing your job.
Unless you have a fantastic team around you who will constantly push you forward you will became obsolete sooner or later.

The point is, you have to learn something on your own. One hour every day. Half day every week. One weekend every month. Anytime that suits you. The more often, the better, it will accumulates faster. Being better by 1% every day snowballs to 37 times better you in a year. That is the best investment you can do.

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