Moving away from pure programming

Geertjan Wielenga: What would you say is the advantage of developer advocacy over spending your life being a pure computer programmer?

Scott Davis: Look, not everyone needs to be an advocate. I've got lots of friends whose real passion is rock climbing or snowboarding. For them, programming is an interesting, exciting, and innovative job, but more importantly, it's a well-paying job; it's something they do as a means to an end.

For me, I've got Alexa at home in several rooms. My family members all have iPads and iPhones. My advocacy, once again, comes from a place of authenticity—this is how we live; we live these digital lives.

My iPad is the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning and it's the last thing I see when I go to bed at night. A device, to me, is not just a computer that you sit down at and walk away from—it's something that you develop a kind of relationship with.

In terms of advocacy, it should be personal. You should be talking about something that you're passionate about. Advocacy is something that you feel compelled to do. You're almost not choosing the tech: the tech is choosing you and you can't help talking about it. If you can find something like that, then it's easy because you're doing what you love.

Geertjan Wielenga: You travel frequently and you come across developer advocates everywhere. What would you say are some commonalities among them?

Scott Davis: What I love most about going to software conferences is meeting the other speakers. I love sitting down at the end of the day and having a drink with them or waking up in the morning and having coffee and a masala dosa with them.

There is something about being a conference speaker that draws us all together, regardless of the language we speak, the company we're working for, or our platform of choice. I love hearing iPhone developers talk passionately about Objective-C and Swift, and I love hearing Android developers talk passionately about Java and Kotlin.

I'm attracted to passion. Honestly, the particular focus of that passion is less important to me. I just love hearing someone else be really passionate about something they love; it makes for great conversation.

Geertjan Wielenga: Have you been in situations where your audience or a client was more knowledgeable? How did you handle that?

Scott Davis: You just described the life of a consultant! I find myself in that situation all the time, whether it's in the classroom or on a new software project. I try to establish some ground rules early on to help to nip it in the bud.

For example, if I come into a pharmaceutical company, I say, "Hey, you know much more about pharmaceuticals than I do, but I know a thing or two about software development. Let's sit down together. You have an idea of what you want the app to do. I have the software skills to help translate your vision into running software and make it come to life." So, rather than setting up an adversarial relationship from the start, I try to respect and acknowledge their strengths. In turn, hopefully, I give them a way to respect my strengths as well.

Geertjan Wielenga: In the life of a conference speaker, technical glitches happen all the time up on stage. How can they be avoided and how do you react to these situations?