[Easy for anyone] Lowering the hurdles for personal development [Personal development engineer]

Nice to meet you!
I'm Sujun from the System Development Department.
This time I'd like to write about personal development

When I talk to various engineers in the company, I find that there are surprisingly few people who are creating something on their own, so I would like to talk about the background and mindset behind my own personal development

history

I think the first time I created a personal website was in high school using HTML, CSS, JS, and Flash. I
didn't use any frameworks, just raw HTML, CSS, and JS. Lol

After that, I studied programming at the Faculty of Information Sciences, and developed what I learned and played around with writing programs.
Using the GUI tool creation method I learned at school as a reference, I even created an external tool for Minecraft and released it to the public. (I still get inquiries about it from time to time.)

Even now, I develop tools as a hobby in my free time, such as during breaks, after work, and after returning home

What is personal development?

When I searched for what personal development is, I found the following description:

Personal software development a hobby activity in which software engineers use their free time to create, publish, and operate websites and smartphone apps .

I think that's generally the general perception

The benefits of personal development

The benefits of personal development include:

Self-development and skill development

Personal development allows you to improve your skills and knowledge. Working independently on different aspects of a project broadens your perspective, improves your problem-solving skills and creativity, and exposes you to architecture and design methods that are not implemented in work projects

Free renovation

Since it is developed by an individual, of course, you can modify it as you like. If you feel something is not right during development, you can immediately change the direction you want. By pursuing this, you will eventually complete the ultimate tool for your desired purpose

Become a portfolio

To be honest, this may not be something you should write on a company blog, but since it's software you developed personally, you can take full credit for it and use it when looking for a job. If you say, "I created the tool by myself, uploaded it to GitHub, etc., and released it," it may be seen as a guarantee of a certain level of skill

Aren't you thinking about it a little too hard?

Creating, publishing, and operating an app...
At first glance, it seems like a rather high hurdle.

It's true that there is an atmosphere that people who release apps/services they've developed for public use are revered as independent developers,
but personally I think it's better to take a broader view and think more casually.

I believe the essence to develop it on your own

I think that writing a program for your own use and running it locally without releasing it to the public is also a form of personal development.
Whether it's for internal use or for the public, releasing it requires thinking about various things like organizing and maintaining documentation, which is a hassle and a high hurdle.

for example…

Based on what I have created in the past, I believe the following can also be included in personal development:

Make your daily life easier

• Use a web browser extension like Tampermonkey
• Use your own Chrome extension
• Use Google Spreadsheet, Form, and GAS

Make your daily work easier

• Creating editor extensions ( Jetbrains , VSCode )
• Automate routine tasks in your daily work

The things that engineers interact with every day are also made by other engineers, and are often designed to be easily expandable.
If you have any complaints about your daily work, why not give it a try?

Where do I start?

To lower the barrier to personal development as much as possible, I personally think that inserting scripts into websites using tools like
Tampermonkey Knowledge-wise, you can create it with just vanilla Javascript, and when it comes to thinking about what to create, I think there are many people who are dissatisfied with the websites they use every day.
To be more specific about what I create, I create scripts with the following functions:

• Moving the buttons on the site
• Filtering what is displayed
• Show thumbnail images on mouse hover
• Insert a template string into the text area
• Format and copy page content to clipboard

It's like having your own microservices.
Easy, right? 🧔🏽‍♂️

Conclusion

As this is my first blog, I have written about my background and hobby of programming.
In the future, I would like to share the projects I am currently working on as a personal developer and the lessons I have learned from them.

Thank you for reading to the end!

Let's all be more relaxed about personal development!