Book Image

Developer, Advocate!

By : Geertjan Wielenga
Book Image

Developer, Advocate!

By: Geertjan Wielenga

Overview of this book

What exactly is a developer advocate, and how do they connect developers and companies around the world? Why is the area of developer relations set to explode? Can anybody with a passion for tech become a developer advocate? What are the keys to success on a global scale? How does a developer advocate maintain authenticity when balancing the needs of their company and their tech community? What are the hot topics in areas including Java, JavaScript, "tech for good," artificial intelligence, blockchain, the cloud, and open source? These are just a few of the questions addressed by developer advocate and author Geertjan Wielenga in Developer, Advocate!. 32 of the industry's most prominent developer advocates, from companies including Oracle, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, open up about what it's like to turn a lifelong passion for knowledge sharing about tech into a rewarding career. These advocates run the gamut from working at large software vendors to small start-ups, along with independent developer advocates who work within organizations or for themselves. In Developer, Advocate!, readers will see how developer advocates are actively changing the world, not only for developers, but for individuals and companies navigating the fast-changing tech landscape. More importantly, Developer, Advocate! serves as a rallying cry to inspire and motivate tech enthusiasts and burgeoning developer advocates to get started and take their first steps within their tech community.
Table of Contents (36 chapters)
34
Other Books You May Enjoy
35
Index
36
Packt

Being open about bugs

Geertjan Wielenga: How honest are you when you know that there are bugs in the tech that you're promoting?

Tim Berglund: I will 100% cop to the bugs. I think that's a different matter altogether because it's a fact that software has bugs.

Geertjan Wielenga: Would you cop to any and all bugs? How far do you go?

Tim Berglund: You have to take that case by case. I'm not going to go out of my way to say, "Well, here are all the bugs!"

Nobody wants to know that. They're just thinking, "How can I succeed with this?"

Geertjan Wielenga: As a developer advocate, you can certainly grow attached to a tech and to the community around it. A downside might be that you could end up being too attached to it. Have you experienced this?

Tim Berglund: No, I love tech, and I can't imagine a life of mine that didn't have tech in it, but I've always been able to decouple myself from it emotionally.

When something is going wrong in a community...