The so called "dark matter developer".

It's taken me a few years to realise this as a developer, but I've learned that public speakers and software developers aren't necessarily the same thing.

That sounds sort of obivous.

In all the years I've been making software I've always thought I ought to share the things I learn, have opinions about the things that are important, and generally try to build a following and become the sort of developer who goes to conferences, stands up and does talks, and is altogether well-known for being a software developer.

That was completely the wrong attitude for me. It's not who I am. It made me concentrate on the wrong things. If you're someone who likes to be on a stage presenting then that's awesome, and I hope to see you do an interesting talk one day. It isn't who I am though, and I've realised that's OK.

There's a term for the sort of developer I'm happy being, but it's a term I don't appreciate. It comes some negative implications. The term is "dark matter developer"; it draws an allusion to the concept in physics that states there's a lot of energy out in the universe that we can't explain. In the same way, there are a lot of developers out there in industry who don't attend events or contribute to conferences, so they're the "dark matter". We know they're there but we can't see them.

Over the last 5 years there have been a number of blog posts, usually from the 'famous' or at least those who want to be famous, railing against the idea of being happy not being in the spotlight.

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The thing is though - why do you need to be seen? If you're writing good code then that's enough in and of itself, isn't it?