TechMoran had a brief chat with a seasoned developer, Abdulhafeez Babatunde (Mista Oba), founder of BBF marketplace to know his view on co-working spaces and how it might (not) affect developers. Do note that Mr. Oba has worked from both ends in question, making him a right choice for this. Our first question to Abdulhafeez hindered around his job as a developer in Nigeria. We wanted to know first, how human interaction has enabled him learn and be better? Has the effect been very great? He answers: “Human interaction can not be overemphasized really. Its one of the basics of living. In making progress, learning new things or even building a career path you have to meet and interact with various people.” “Although the value of these interactions vary from person to person amd could either be positive or negative, one is left with the decision of choosing which effect is valuable.” “As a developer in Nigeria, human interaction could be in the form of mentorships, meetups or even working in a team. Being a developer can be really overwhelming and having these human interactions can help keep a developer in check.” True that Oba has worked from coworking spaces, which would make him a rightful person to answer if he considers them a necessity for developers. Well, he pins it to a matter of choice and personality, but also thinks they are very useful. “Coworking spaces are invaluable really, however its a factor of personality so I can’t really term it as a necessity buy its a huge plus especially if you’re able to find one that fits exactly into your demands for community, interaction and learning. It helps you further develop yourself.” While we have affirmed that co-working spaces could be of great use to developers, most times, we wanted to know, in Abdulhafeez’s view of course, why 79% of developers plan to work remotely. From his reply, “remotely” could mean a lot of things. “Lots of factors could be responsible for this, comfort, opportunity, nature of dev job etc. Dev jobs come in different forms, some may be long term, others short term. This could eliminate the need for physical presence. Stack Overflow shows that 53% of devs rank working from home as a more valued benefit over even health insurance! More experienced developers tend to work from home and it has visible effects on their productivity.” “Working remotely doesn’t necessarily mean working from home however, it could mean working from somewhere the developer feels more comfortable. There’s the famous JK Rowling who completed the Harry Potter series while working from a coffee shop. She simply enjoyed the comfortability of the shop!” And a last question….
In your view, how many developers collaborating do you consider “too rowdy” to learn?
I am not sure I can really put a number to that. Maybe because I haven’t had that experience or maybe because I just love the term ‘Developer Community’. I can imagine the sort of product that could be made from a collaboration from the entire Nigerian Dev community. In all, the end justifies the means. Well, no doubt, co-working spaces are still, and need to continue to be an integral part of an (our) ecosystem. Maybe they need to be more comfortable, and also provide for privacy when needed, and also have options that make developers or other team members feel they are working “remotely”. But then, here’s a developer’s view on co-working spaces.
