Cody joins the discussion to talk about breaking into the development world without a degree or any formal training. He started college and for a time was a computer science major but left to persue a career as a developer.

There are many reasons that you might not know you are a bad developer. If you are just going through the motions because of a bad work environment or family life you can become a bad developer even when you aren't most of the time. Many of these are less about the quality of the code doing most of the work and more about your own impact on the development ecosystem around you.

Before starting to learn a new programming language you should take a few considerations. How different is the new language from your current one? Compare the environment, paradigm, syntax, and level of automatic operations between the languages.

Frustration occurs when results or goals do not fit the effort you apply toward them. This can come as internal or external goal blockages. Internal blockages come from personal deficiencies or competing goals. External blockages are conditions outside of oneself.

Premature optimization will really harm your efficiency as a developer, without providing any real benefit to the execution of your application. That doesn't mean you never do, but you have to choose the places where your effort will not negatively impact your own efficiency.

This week the guys invited their friend Erin Orstrom to join them in a round table discussion on their different experiences in learning to code and the concepts of computer science. Will has a degree in Computer Information Systems whereas Erin and BJ have degrees in other fields but ultimately came to programming as a career.

It has also been found that the trial and error process of debugging code strengthens mental capabilities. Keeping your mind sharp will help increase motivation and focus, creativity and inspiration, and prevent cognitive decline.

Numbers are representations of things, not things themselves. We have to be able to store and process numbers in an efficient manner in order for our programs to run well. However, those numbers also have to be accurate. We can't lose data in the process of storage, retrieval, or arithmetic operations.

Freelancing can give you better control over your work-life balance. Though you may spend much of your free time looking for work. It allows you to be your own boss and choose your own hours but requires more accountability.

Typically social awkwardness is defined as feeling nervous or uncomfortable in social settings. For most socially awkwardness people situations where they have to be social provoke anxiety and nervousness. Many are introverts and so even being around people they know can be draining.