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by rn00m

Day in the life of a developer in Tokyo: Overcoming Challenges

Technology is the devil, because it has a 1000 names! Ok, I just made that up, but it does sometimes feel like it.

Situation

Got hired as a web developer in Tokyo, working for a golf media company with an intriguing side-business: arranging golf reservations for international clients visiting Japan. After eight months, I transitioned to remote work and returned to Osaka.

Opportunity - Stepping away from your comfort zone

With the variety in client needs, including those using platforms like Shopify, WIX, Drupal, and Zoho CRM integrations, it was an opportunity to learn more and turning this into a rewarding, skill-building experience.

My Challenges:

  • I had almost no experience with the technologies being used.
  • My background: I had set up Drupal once or twice for fun, but never stuck with PHP, I was more into C# and ASP.NET back then.
  • The hardest part? I worked completely alone. Just me, myself, and a steep learning curve (much less steep now, よかった).
    • I was facing all these technologies at the same time. It felt like an epic battle waiting to happen.

The Drama:

  • Yes, I’ll admit it, I did bring the site down once or twice for about half an hour. Good thing I made backups.
  • In my defense, the button literally said “Update.” Of course I clicked it. Anyone would.
  • Naturally, this caused some drama. I had to step up fast and learn everything on the fly.
People tend to remember your mistakes more than your successes, and they may/will use those mistakes against you. Solutions, fixes, ideas, everything you done good or perfect is often forgotten or overlooked. Your job is to remember your wins, your strengths, and to remind others of them when necessary.

My Drama:

After a while I figured out the whole setup, how views, blocks, displays and everything else fit together. I learned how to safely update all 199 modules (yes, one hundred and ninety‑nine) using Composer and Drush instead of pressing that lovely “Update” button. Twice. The second time was an accident. Someone bumped my arm. I upgraded the site from Drupal 9 to 10, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to go through all of that again when Drupal 11 arrives.

  • I might rebuild the whole thing from scratch with a cleaner naming convention.
  • Three different developers worked on this site before me, all at the same time, with zero communication — so of course there are three different styles.
  • And this was just the PHP side. I’m not even touching Shopify/Liquid, Zoho CRM/Deluge, or the other third‑party apps here.
  • Drama isn’t really my thing anyway. If it shows up, I deal with it and move on. I know some people live for drama, but those stories are for another time. Honestly, I forget their names as soon as the situation is over — erased from the brain. I remember the characters, the goofy faces, but even those fade eventually.

Solution

There isn’t a magic trick. You just:

  • Learn on the fly.
  • Watch YouTube or take a Udemy course (use common sense — not everything is good for everyone).
  • Apply your own logic and experience. The basics are always the same; sometimes they just come with different names.
  • And yes, for some people technology feels like the devil because it has a thousand names. Fair enough.

My Process (not yours) and achievements:

  1. PHP Sites:
  • First, I learned the hosting provider’s setup and operations. Good documentation helps. Excellent support helps even more. Having both is a dream.
  • Composer and Drush made life easier on modern sites.
  • Then came the nightmare project:
    • PHP 5.4.45 with CakePHP 1.3 in Docker, which only supports PHP 5.6 and up.
    • I still have nightmares about this one.
    • I avoided Composer here, legacy setups have their own rules, and honestly I don’t even remember why.
  1. Drupal 9:
  • Learned how views, blocks, and displays work.
  • Updated 199 modules (removed many, only to discover dependencies hiding everywhere).
  • Successfully upgraded Drupal 9 → 10.
  • Thought about rebuilding everything for Drupal 11, but no — it works, and I’ll prepare it slowly.
  • With the experience gained, I built a fully functional Drupal e‑commerce site.

  1. Shopify and WIX: • Compared to Drupal, these were a breeze. • Low learning curve — just understand the limitations and the pricing.

  2. Zoho CRM/Books/Flow/etc:

  • Still having fun with this one. Every CRM has its quirks.
  • I even got frustrated enough to try running Zoho CRM headless on localhost using their REST API and OAuth 2.0…
  • …only to realize I shouldn’t continue:
    1. It was above my pay grade.
    2. And nobody asked for that functionality anyway.

Closing Thought

- Row with the paddles you’ve got. - Everything will eventually become easy or do-able once you understand the basics. - Don’t fight the technology in front of you, save the battle for another day. Accept it for now. - Take time to breathe and live in the real world, especially when you’re in a new city. - Don’t be afraid to step outside your comfort zone, even if it’s not your preferred technology. Learn from the quirks, the mistakes, and the troubleshooting. - In the end, all the technologies above are fine, easy for some, harder for others, but I still feel most at home in modern frameworks. Everyone has their own thing.