Technical Jargons: Do they intimidate you?
Krish Palaniappan
Developer & Architect @ Snowpal. We offer domain-agnostic APIs to reduce cost, risk, effort, & ultimately, time to market. Run in your infrastructure or pay by use/subscription on AWS Marketplace (products.snowpal.com).
The speaker presents advice for developers, emphasizing the importance of understanding technical jargon while encouraging a proactive approach to asking questions. It underscores the significance of focusing on principles of good software development rather than getting bogged down by ever-changing terminology. The speaker highlights the need for continuous learning and adaptability in understanding different technologies. They stress the value of active participation in professional settings and conclude with a reminder to prioritize learning and contribution. Additionally, they promote a specific website or application, encouraging engagement with the platform. Overall, the transcript offers guidance for navigating the complexities of the development field with confidence and a commitment to ongoing improvement.
Summary
Importance of Understanding Technical Jargon:
Emphasis on Asking Questions:
Focus on Building Good Software:
Understanding Different Technologies:
Continuous Learning and Contribution:
Podcast
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Transcript
0:01
Hey there, if you’re new to development, or maybe even if you’ve been doing it for a while, and if you asked me for one piece of advice, which you clearly have not, but assuming you did, what might be that one piece of advice that I might give you?
0:18
I think here is what it might be. You know, do not be afraid of technical jargon. I see this happen all the time, whether you’re new or you’ve been doing this for a few years or even a long time. I’ve seen that people are actually worried about asking those questions because technology changes all the time, more often than maybe some of us want it to change.
0:43
But even when the technology or the framework or the whole approach does not change, the technical terms do change. It’s a way of branding, right? Because if we say the same thing the same way for years, it gets boring. So yeah, there’s a new way to address the same type of problem, the same type of solution.
0:58
So those terms are going to change. And it’s all right if you don’t understand the terms. I think it’s completely all right. Because if you’ve been building software the right way and that “right way” keeps changing, depending on the frameworks, libraries, and tools we have available to us at any given point in time, what is correct today is not going to be correct tomorrow.
1:16
There would be a better way to do it tomorrow. And we have to learn what those better ways are. But having said that, or with that said, you should not worry about not understanding these terms. I mean it, it really doesn’t matter if someone says something and you don’t understand it, just ask.
1:33
You should. It does not make you sound stupid. It does not make you sound silly. And even if it does, who cares? It’s not your problem. It’s someone else’s problem if they think you’re stupid. So ask those questions. Because a lot of times something that starts out as a really technical grouping of words might simply be a very trivial problem that you would have actually solved thousands of times.
1:51
And then you’re like, oh, okay, I know what that means, right? So don’t be bogged down by language and technical jargon. They might be frightening, but they’re not super important. If you’re a good engineer, you will continue to build good software even if you actually had no knowledge of any of these technical terms.
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2:10
Because if you did things right, the way you thought it had to be done from a development standpoint, from a maintainability standpoint, from a performance standpoint, from a scalability standpoint, from an extensibility standpoint, if you did all of that generally well, it does not matter whether you’re building software in C or C++, or Java or Python or Ruby or JavaScript, or whether you’re building UI in Node or Flutter or Vue.
2:38
It really doesn’t matter. I mean, of course, depending on what you use, the way you’re going to approach the problem is going to have to change. So you don’t end up writing Java code like Ruby and vice versa. Or you don’t build Flutter pages like you’re building React pages, for instance, right?
2:53
So you do want to understand how that system works. That’s understood. But that to me is not technical jargon. That’s related to that particular technology. Well, at least those are not the jargon I’m referring to. There is some fancy grouping of words that I hear all the time, and it’s never bothered me.
3:11
I mean, I would be like, hey, I don’t understand, what does that mean? I would just instantaneously ask the question. But I know people, very, very smart people, people who are a whole lot smarter than I could ever be, who actually may not understand those words. And then they are not comfortable asking what that means because they feel like they should have known that. No, you need, you’re not expected to know everything, right?
3:29
You’re expected to be honest, credible, do the job to the best of your abilities. That’s your promise to yourself and to the person and the company paying you. But your promise is not that you know all of these words because they change all the time. And honestly, who cares?
3:45
I mean, I could care less. So next time you’re in a meeting and a discussion and someone says something and you don’t understand, please, please ask the question once, twice, three times, or any number of times. Because if you don’t, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
4:00
And by virtue of that, you’re doing the same disservice to your employer. The sooner you understand, the better off everybody is, right? It’s okay to not know. I mean, trust me, it’s okay to not know. And every day, I actually learn one more thing. I realize how much lesser I actually knew the day before, or even that current day, right?
4:17
For whatever that’s worth. I’m kind of paraphrasing what I’ve said on my website. You can go look it up. I thought that through before I wrote it there. But this is literally what I mean. Every day that I learn a little bit more, I realize how much lesser I knew the day before. Maybe it came out better the second time around.
4:34
So it’s okay to not know, but it’s not okay to continue to not know, right? So just make sure you keep learning, make sure you put your best foot forward, and make sure you get out of a meeting or a discussion with more knowledge than you had when you entered the meeting.
4:50
At the same time, make sure you contribute a little bit more to that meeting or the discussion as well. And last but not least, I mean, just try not to be in too many meetings, right? Sometimes to get things done, you got to give yourself that space and time, and then that’s going to help you cool, and that’s all I had to say.
5:07
And before I end the video, remember to sign up on snowpal.com if you’re already done. So we pushed out a new version of the app a couple of days back. I pushed that out. I think version 6076 it was. It’s got some more features, some improvements. Check it out on the App Store and Play Store and also check out our web app, right?
5:25
So it’s got a lot more features as well. Cool. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.
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