image taken from www.tes.com
Nigel Rodgers is a budding WordPress developer. He’ll be speaking at WordCamp Harare.
November is the busiest month of the year. With exams, holiday deadlines and year-end reports it’s easy to get lost in all the activity. But while you take stock of the state of your organisation, it’s important to take a look at yourself too. Personal reconciliation is an important part of growing into a better person. I reflect a lot in my diary, and I even refer back to entries from years ago. I’m often struck by how unrecognizable the old me is. I have multiple past, present and future selves that are a combination of mood, character, personality, and experiences among other factors.
YouTuber, Jake Roper has a great video illustrating multiple versions of oneself. (Shot in 360o)
Software development is analogous to our multiple versions of self. Projects are influenced by different factors and can exist in multiple states simultaneously. The public usually receives a curated state, or version, that is an amalgamation of all past versions. However the published version only shows the user the front end of the present version. Retired code from previous versions and code from future versions are usually withheld.
In life deciding which version of yourself to present is mostly done subconsciously, and with little effort otherwise. Computers don’t have the gift of subconscious (and consciousness), so we need to actively keep track of all the changes we make during code development projects. The process of keeping track of changes in code is called version control, and one of the most popular version control tools is Git.
I’ll be doing a presentation on using Git with WordPress at the Harare WordCamp on 10 December 2016. It’ll be your only chance to see that version of me, but if you can’t make it, or have some questions answered ahead of time please ask in the comments section below, and I’ll do my best to respond.