(The following blog post was written by Nicholas Vella)
I am not the greatest developer in the world. Not that it has stopped me from trying, and the constant, endless pursue of knowledge has taken me to the vast corners of the Internet, from the most popular blogs to questions on Stack Overflow even the original poster forgot about. Of course, on one of my many adventures, I was bound to end up finding the Succinctly series. Short and to the point, this free collection is ideal as a pocket reference or to someone with a short attention span like myself.
A while ago, a colleague of mine working on a side project had some issues with JavaScript syntax for which he asked my opinion. Working on a side project myself, we started talking about how we were tackling obstacles along the way. I expressed concern about a calendar feature I needed to add and said that I had absolutely no idea where to start. It is then he pointed me to Syncfusion Essential Studio®. To be honest, I felt a bit silly at that time because I was always under the impression this was a paid product. My colleague reassured me, “Do not worry, they introduced a community license and their support is amazing.”
So I went ahead; a quick read through the online documentation and I had a scheduler up and running in no time. A small bump in the road left me scratching my head and so I sucked up my pride and contacted support. I was amazed. The level of support, recreating issues, providing solutions through samples, all made the experience much less painful than I thought it would be.
As I continued my project, I kept considering that I had gotten to know about these products because I had helped a colleague and, in turn, had been so kindly assisted. Then that moment of revelation. This is what makes our community alive. People who, through constant dedication, provide the tools and knowledge to help us be better at what we do. So let this be an ode (of sorts) to the people out there who dedicate their lives to following a passion and an ideal.
Thank you for staying up late to push that bug fix for the free API you kindly provide.
Thank you for dedicating less time to personal recreation just because you need to finish that blog post or write that e-book.
Thank you for going the extra mile with that client and making sure his issue is solved even though he has the community license.
This experience was an enlightenment of sorts. Not only did I become better at what I do, but I learned that there is more than one way to achieve greatness.
My name is Nicholas Vella. I am a developer and freelancer living on the sunny island of Malta. My hobbies are sort of intertwined with my job, as I do enjoy reading about what is new in the IT world. Yet I do my best to detach a bit by watching movies, gardening, and hitting the gym. If you liked this article, please feel free to connect via LinkedIn.