Back in October, my son’s robotics team said “Hey! You work for a software company, can you build us an application that will help us with scouting and competitions?” Foolishly, ego stepped in before a careful outsourced review of my existing skills could take place, so I said “Sure! Not a web developer, but how hard could it be?”
Seriously… how hard could this be? I see web application traffic all the time. On the wire. And I can even manipulate that traffic at the protocol level and do amazing things with it programmatically. But…changing application traffic in flight is not development of that application. Nor is it an understanding of all the considerations one must evaluate and handle to get from idea to solution. So yeah, it is hard. Dang hard. Actually, getting to a dynamic web experience “hello world” is easy, but getting to a working application? Not so easy. Or quick. And rightfully so. Skills take time to master, and mastery unlocks new levels with which to master.