I’ve been developing websites for nearly twenty years… alone. I’ve never been on a team with other coders. My jobs have all been freelance or being a full-time webmaster. Once for a hospital and now for a school. All the coding knowledge I have is self taught.
I thought I was good. My eyes were open when I became interested in possibly working for a company my friend worked for. I applied, nailed the personality interview then choked on the code samples. I was a bad programmer.
I understand coding. I can read code. I get the logic and what is happening and why. But I had no structure. I didn’t take the extra step to keep things clean and prepared for growth. I’d right nearly the same section of code five times in an app instead of writing an appropriate function.
I decided to level up and I’ve started. My first goal was to write a plugin from scratch and do it the right way. As of now it’s being reviewed for addition to WordPress.org. I have another nearly ready to submit and another half finished. I’ve built a theme and I’ve been studying the deeper parts of WordPress core. Onward and upward.