[hiltmon]

I occasionally write one of these blogs. I have been programming for 32 years and have achieved more success by doing it than I could have expected. I've learned a few things here and there. Some days I write amazingly great code, most days, vomitus shit code. All this experience just means I recognize better which is which. But I keep learning, every day.

I was lucky when I was a rookie to have a great mentor, to guide me into thinking about what I do and in challenging the practices and techniques of coding. I see a lot of developers these days without mentors, who look elsewhere for guidance and ideas.

And part of the problem with us (great and not great - it irrelevant IMHO) developers is we're all really good (or getting better at) at coding (it is what we love and do), but on average we're pretty awful at communicating. I learned much from the few I met who could communicate.

So I started to write. To learn how to communicate. And the best forum for that is the internet. Fast, clear, and often brutal feedback abounds. You either get better or you get out. Looking back, my early writing was terrible, you decide if it got better.

My goal was to share the nuggets I picked up over the years and share them, the good and bad. To be a virtual mentor, to pay back what I received. Some nuggets I believe are solid gold and I hope readers will find parts of them to help themselves grow, and some nuggets are radioactive and I hope readers will dodge these traps. I do not believe I am right all the time (and again, an internet discussion often reveals flaws in my knowledge and experience), all I wish to do is add value.

I do not tag myself as a "great" programmer, I trust I am not being too arrogant saying I am an "above average" programmer, this industry is huge and there is still much to learn for anyone to claim the title "master builder".