Vacation😎Like a Pro Developer

*Photo* *Lance Asper @lance_asper* *on Unsplash*

Welcome to the holiday season! I’m on vacation right now and wanted to let you share where The Secret Developer spends their hard-earned vacation days.

Where I Am

It’s summer 2024. So, I’m going to give it to you straight. If I tilt my head at a 45° angle, I can see this:

*Photo by* *Bernard Hermant @bernardhermant* *on Unsplash*

Obviously, if I look down, there is a laptop with this blog and some code. I think this is a happy vacation, and don’t have a problem with it.

I’m avoiding doing a bit of LeetCode and getting a bit of practice coding done. For me, that’s a happy holiday.

I understand that isn’t even every software engineer’s taste in vacations.

So, I present to you the hottest developer destinations, and where you can get the most from your precious vacation time and given a score for each.

The Beach

*Photo by* *resa cahya @bagus_resacahya01* *on Unsplash*

Pro developers spend time in their hotel rooms as the sun will reflect from your laptop screen and make working difficult. Remember to pack an external monitor for setup in your hotel room!

The beach offers many opportunities for a productive vacation. Sandcastles represent an analogy for entropy, and being on the beach offers opportunities to read Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code.

The resulting sand in your keyboard will mean Apple’s geniuses will:

Know you went on vacation
Quickly invalidate your warranty

This type of vacation does not work well for software engineers, so better to skip it.

Developer vacation score: 4 / 10

The Woods

*Photo by* *Alfonso Betancourt @tigredemar*

The lack of Wi-Fi on a vacation will discourage all but the most dedicated pro developer, who will run down their cell battery to make sure they still join the daily standup. Tree canopies make a great shelter from the summer sun’s glare, and remote locations remove the possibility of meeting other people (so the pro developer can focus on refactoring a helper class).

If you’re one of the zero people who use binary trees at work, the woods provide inspiration for the data structure too! It might be an issue that you’ll starve due to the fact that DoorDash won’t deliver to remote locations, so you’d be better to make it a short vacation break before going back to work.

Developer vacation score: 7 / 10

Sports Events

*Photo by* *John Ruddock @highorbitmedia* *on Unsplash*

You might choose a staycation to ensure you can still pop into the office to see support in case there is an MDM problem on your work machine. You might choose to catch “a game” with the gender nonspecific “guys” to celebrate your time off.

Then you realize:

You all hate sports
The “guys” dislike you
Noise is inversely proportional to your concentration
The view is better on TV than from your discount seats at the game
The WiFi doesn’t work

The whole environment works against you as a software engineer. Perhaps give this one a miss?

Developer vacation score: 2 / 10

SF for WWDC

Of course, no real developer would be seen at WWDC, so ignore this one entirely.

*Photo by* *Artem Horovenko @nsobject* *on Unsplash*

Let’s keep this vacation guide real.

Developer vacation score: 1 / 10

Asia

What could be better than a break in Asia! Pro developers understand the benefits of ubiquitous super-fast WiFi and the availability of cheap hardware and software for the discerning shopper.

Ramen? I’m guessing that will be available.

This destination gets The Secret Developer Stamp of approval, and I recommend that you get a ticket booked ASAP.

Developer vacation score: 9 / 10

Conclusion

I’m sure you’re all pro developers and don’t take any PTO. You’re probably on an unlimited vacation time job, so that is tacitly encouraged by your employer.

“Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think”