Small-town code

As you may or may not know, I am based in a small town at the bottom of the world: Dunedin, New Zealand. As a dev, this comes with quite a few quirks.

I first moved from Invercargill, a minuscule town on the Antarctic edge of New Zealand, up to Otago University in Dunedin. Then to Auckland, then back to Dunedin shortly after.

One challenge living far from the dev haps is staying current. I am certain that there are more WordPress/PHP developers in Dunedin than any other form of developer. Now though, I have found a few great people -- so I can pick their brains for their latest haps. Things move fast in dev land.

The quality of dev education in Dunedin is, unfortunately, less than ideal. People from Auckland -- New Zealand's capital city -- have a mammoth advantage, as they have both much better universities and more job opportunities. If I were an NZ pre-uni lad looking to get into development, I would probably move my ass to Auckland or Wellington.

The benefits are as much physicological as material, as our bigger cities house much more diversity and a different mentality of thinking. From the boutique boujee city of Wellington; to our simultaneously third-world and first-world city, Auckland. Compared to the religious backwater hicksville of Balclutha (sorry not sorry), any big city will do you good (even Christchurch, as much as I hate it).

For me though, now, Dunedin is a nice place to live, with cheap housing, great nature, and nice people.

Best,