Tech Talks - You Do Have Something To Say!

One evening in February I was telling another Android Developer about my relatively new job. We got onto the topic of architecture and I mentioned to him how we’re using the MVVM pattern and I was extremely surprised by his reply: “What’s that? How do you implement it?”. Joining upday, where MVVM is common knowledge made me feel like I’m the last Android developer in the world that learns about it but as it turns out, it’s not at all the case.

That evening I gave my first “tech talk” about MVVM over dinner with him. With that I’ve learned an important lesson about tech talks inspiration: get out of your bubble! What’s obvious and easy for you, might not be the same for others.

There’s one sentence that I was repeating and that I keep on hearing from others, maybe even from you:

I have nothing to say.

For most of the developers, it can’t be further away from the truth. The next sentence is usually: “Everything I know is just out there, in the documentation“. Although this one is correct, there are a few other points that may be worth considering as part of your assessment.

You’re Solving Problems Everyday

If your day looks anything like mine, then it’s combination of understanding how the platform works, how your code works and finding the best way to leverage them. Regardless of whether you’re fixing a bug or implementing a new feature, you essentially have a problem you need to solve. So why not talk about it? Chances are someone else out there has a similar problem.

I started talking by describing how we architected our app with the help of RxJava and MVVM and ended up sharing my knowledge about UI patterns around the world.

If public speaking is not your thing, then write about it! At one point I had to implement an animated view that handles tap events. It took me a few hours and several attempts to have something working correctly. Surely I’m not the only Android dev with this kind of issues… so why not write about it?

I want to know about your problems and your solutions. You’ll inspire both myself and others to find better ways of implementing solutions for our own issues.

You’re Using APIs That Ease Your Developer Life

Some APIs are straightforward and easy to use, some require a bit of reading and others have a really steep learning curve but in the end, you ended up reading and using them and discovering their advantages and disadvantages. Share that!

As an example, I’ve been using RxJava for some years now but I still remember my confusion in the first few months. It took me a while until I understood what’s going on there, what data streams are and how they work. Why not help others and give them some nudge on that steep learning curve?

You’re a developer, you’re writing code and learning new things every day. Share it! Share your experience, your problems and solutions, the APIs that help you write good, clean, performant code. Most of all, get out of your bubble, be open to new opportunities and empower other developers to become better.