Chip Cullen

December 23, 2015

I had a situation at work where we had an edge case in a component: sometimes a logo didn't appear. When I noticed this, I responded as a dumb developer.

I didn't look around, and notice in other very similar components that there was a fallback for this scenario. Instead, I just saw a lack of a logo, blinked, and just mentally folded.

Don't do this. Don't be a dumb developer.

As a developer, if you want to genuinely help your team, and garner respect within your organization, don't just take issues in front of you at face value. Don't throw up your hands immediately and say, "I don't know what to do here".

As you become a more experienced developer, you will be able to deal with an ambiguous situation by:

• Looking around for context; seeing what other solutions exist within your project
• Raising concerns others might not be aware of
• Being able to perceive what others might not understand and be able to communicate with that in mind
• Be able to proactively come up with suggested solutions — while being able to point out benefits and drawbacks

The hardest part of any development is dealing with ambiguous circumstances. It is not up to others to figure things out for you. The more you proactively deal with ambiguousness, the more your value will grow.