Content creators are educating junior Devs on social platforms that probably idealize their view even when they are not top of their class.
We are living a moment of maximum exposure to content creation with software development topics. The last news regarding this topic is the creation of a specific section regarding Software Development Channels in the popular streaming platform Twitch:
And that is just an additional stage on the trend that we are seeing in the past years where the content created and the people investing their time in sharing their knowledge on the internet are exploding.
You pretty much can find a Live Channel that will teach or share with you a lot of knowledge and experience on all the topics regarding software development. No matter what topic you are looking for, you will have it there. For example, I just went earlier today. I found the following live channels: Making an MMO from scratch, Maya Development, Java Programming, GoLang programming, CMS programming using Django and Python, and much more.
This is a great thing. We live in an era where we have great quality content at our disposal, especially in our industry, that will help us improve our skills and knowledge base. All these content creators are the key contributors to that. And those are increasing the popularity of the best content creators reaching outstanding levels.
But that situation is also creating the circumstance that junior devs or just people starting a new skill start to think that the people showing their view or experience regarding a topic are the top devs in that area, and that is very far from the truth. So it is leaning to a dangerous situation.
To be clear: Content Creators are not usually Great Devs. Normally there are regular devs with awesome communication skills. And that is more important with a will to share what they know with their audience. Even that there are earning money with this, to be fair, they have an unambiguous determination to play a social role of sharing the knowledge with the world, and that’s very important.
This is not just trying to shame content creators because of their quality; this is happening in all industries. Best knowledge shared is not usually top of their practice. You can think of any topic: Mathematics, Physics but also Sports. Are the best narrators of Football the best players? No, for sure.
But because of this reason, it is important to keep in mind this where we are attending to those channels or viewing those videos that they are not the true experts, so you should always cross-check their statements to be sure this is aligned with the best practices and processes.
If you would like to see what real good devs are doing, it is much easier to find it close to where the code resides. Using platforms such as GitHub or SourceForge top star projects that provide value and reading their conversations or analyzing their commits, we will provide you a much clearer view of what real top developers are doing.
Another option is subscribing to the mailing list of those projects where you can see real developer discussion, the main points they are doing, and the reasoning behind those decisions.
This is much important knowledge rather than what you can see in a live session of somebody programming on a streaming platform, but this is also part of the process because you will need to have the foundation to be ready to understand what the discussion is referring to and to that introduction level the way that this awesome content creator is sharing the knowledge is the best way for anyone to understand it and assimilate it.
