I am a web developer and design websites for personal use. After watching the movie Social Network (though I watched it a bit late and my friends who watched it earlier then I did, had called me up to watch this movie as soon as I can, as they thought I could relate myself to this movie). I was able to make sense out of coding being done for FaceMash and could relate and analyze various traits of a web developer and what excitement lies there when you develop a site for yourself. After watching it, I could relate it to myself on various occasions. Some I could recall are:
- Launching of a Social Networking website for University in 2003-04, I did it for my institute in 2005.
- Excitement you have when “It’s Live”..
- Number of Visitors coming up..and increasing..
So, when you develop a website..First thing is you forget the time. Its all day that you spend time on your system developing that great concept. Well, you get up from your Development Chair for just 30-60 minutes in a day and the day is not usual 8 hours office like stuff but..it starts from around 11 AM – 5AM (yeah, I wrote it right) i.e. around 16 hours or even more. During this duration food is often skipped and if there is someone out there to make food for you then its great. Otherwise food is arranged in some conditions only like
- You haven’t taken a break recently (around 6-7 hours before)
- you just finished up with a code segment (most likely)
- you are not getting the idea or logic and
- lastly (rarely) – you really want to eat food because you are hungry..
The Excitement comes whenever
- you come up with a New Idea (feature) to implement during your development
- you got an idea for a logic (though it may not work when you worked upon it)
- you complete a phase
- ofcourse when you Launch it (even though you have various other plans for new features to integrate them today only) and
- lastly when you see Friends, Visitors, Users, People coming up and visiting it.
With few of my sites (or I would say Online Events Games), when organizing an online event and watching more and more users coming up and participating in the event make you feel very very happy. Not only this, but when they comment on your site from your feedback section it feels even better. Though you may find both positive and negative feedback and some suggestions, but these negative ones makes you happier too..because from all the users at least these people find it worth to give a Feedback.
When you sleep is not fixed but when you wake up is
Well, when you wake up is not fixed by Clock time but it depends when a new idea or logic strikes, you feel it is the time to get back (even if you have slept for 3-4 hours only, the excitement makes one really crazy). After getting up, first thing one generally (surely) do is opening his system and thinking where I left it last time and then start thinking about it. After some time (amm..some hours), you think that after getting up after a nice sleep you haven’t done anything like brushing your Teeth, getting fresh, a bath (generally skipped) and some food. And it remains a thought only because you take another couple of hours to do them.
As, I mentioned When You Sleep is not fixed is because until you finish up a code segment or some feature you are working on you plan to make your sleep wait for some time. You sleep when:
- you are stuck up with some idea or logic (sometimes)
- you are tired now and need a break (sometimes)
- you are feeling sleepy (sometimes)
- doesn’t have resources like electricity, internet not working etc. (often)
From where the Stucked Logic Comes
Logic (when you stuck up while implementation) most often comes during a break). This break is not the usual break. It is when you go to Washroom and sit there for sometime thinking of what you were doing up and suddenly the Logic pops up and now you are in a hurry to get back to Development Chair..but you need to wait and get free from here as well.
The Social Reactions
Your Social Presence changes drastically and it could be explained under Online and Offline Social Presence and Reactions.
Offline Social Presence
- You do not want anyone to be around you making noise or not around even when not making any noise. You want it all silent with some pleasant music.
- Someone comes up to meet you and you have to meet them but your mind is still out there on Development Chair and you don’t concenterate on what the visitor is talking
- You don’t go with your friends and avoid social gatherings
- You don’t want to be asked again and again for food and reminders to eat now
- You don’t want to be called again and again, if you are being called then you are always coming in 2 minutes
- Phone calls are a no no. You take it when it is very urgent and cutting the talk very short is just so common
Online Social Presence
Online Social is comparatively less affected than Offline.
- You are online on social networking sites and messengers but you never respond to them and try to avoid them as much as it could be avoided as a single reply to them take you in an ever going conversations (it feels like this only even when you chat for 2-3 minutes).
- Your replies are slow and the online visitor understands this and sometimes even asks you if you are busy and you reply by saying either no and sometimes say “Yes a bit, but we can talk” and you never talk willingly.
All these factors, excitement, craziness makes it worth at the end..