There are plenty of articles talking about IT industry benefits, and usually, they talk about the same things: highly paid, flexibility, unlimited options, hiring demand, etc.

The idea here is to talk about two benefits I really appreciate, and I don't hear much about it.

Unlike some areas, the inventors of a tool/field you work/use daily bases, still alive and reachable. In some areas, people are still alive, but they are like superstars and are inaccessible. In other areas they are simply dead. Can you imagine how many questions psychology professionals want to ask Freud?

Fortunately, I had the opportunity to attend talks from Vincent Cerf and Tim Berners Lee, two of the inventors of the internet. And that is not all, me and some friends take the creator of Free Software and Emacs Richard Stallman to have lunch once, and had a nice talk about music and life.

Me and Jon "Maddog" Hall at Campus Party 2009

These are just my examples, but I know that my friends and other developers have their stories with someone they get inspired by or like the work.

So, this is my invitation to encourage you if you are new and/or don't have experiences like this. You can send emails or attendee to events and, with respect and good manners, approach people you get inspired by and start a good conversation about something you both like.

Hear from Richard Stallman saying that Emacs loves all its users, was a really great moment.

The other benefit is the possibility to walk by many industries and areas and learn a little, (in some cases, not so little) about topics you would probably never learn about. I can list some areas I worked with: gift card industry, accounting, tax writing and payroll, computer factory and diamond industry.

It's not a rule but a choice. I believe that learning more about the business I'm working with, help me code better and have better discussions and be able to ask better questions. I took a long time to understand that is not a developer obligation, and will depend on your profile.

I really like how sometimes, all this knowledge comes together and helps me create a new and innovative solution to complex problems we bump into in this IT industry.

That's all folks, see you next post.