141–150 of 460 posts
2. Don't write clever code, write readable code. Participate in code golf or obfuscation contests to scratch the itch if you have one, but keep it out of production code, even if its a private project that you will never share with anyone; it will save you from yourself.
Save 25X your annual spending and you can retire. If you invest to earn 7%/yr (on avg), you can withdraw 4% forever. Read the book The Simple Path to Wealth, or the basics in this blog post. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...
I have a friend with a genetic defect - unless there is a major medical advance he will be dead in about 15 years at 55. He doesn't need as much saved up to retire.
I have a friend who couldn't afford to retire until 75. He really enjoyed his younger life doing things that his body isn't able to do now. Perhaps this is the right decision for you.
I knew someone who saved a lot of money and then unexpectedly died 2 years after he retired. On hindsight he shouldn't have saved as much.
The only wrong answer is not making the best decision you can about.
do not burnout I know you are young and you feel like you're invincible. I know you can pull an all-nighter and work the next day just fine. We have all been in that situation and believe me, it is gonna take a toll at your performance ... and it could even trigger or help you develop some health issues in your life that can sabotage you down the line. Realize there's only so much progress one can do in the day. Stop…
Aren't young people allowed to, well, be young though? When you don't go to nightclubs, don't have friends to call at 1am and can't play guitar in your 400sqft apartment with neighbors on all sides of the world's thinnest walls, is it a terrible thing if coding all day and all night on relatively minor problems to make somebody else five figures a week is your primary source of excitement? Does it not beat alcohol an…
That said, having balance is usually a good idea. If you have interests indepedent of your work, you will be able to lean on those interests when work isn't going well. This may not seem important now, but some day you may find yourself tired and lonely working late at night without seeing the fruits of those labors and suddenly your stuck with nothing else going on in your life.
1: Never trust a recruitment agent.
2: Don't be afraid to ask questions. I've had 30+ contracts in 18 years, and I've lost count of the number of times I've been in a big meeting where some manager or director is specifying something which makes no sense, and all the other developers are just nodding quietly. It saves a LOT of time if someone politely says "sorry, maybe I'm being a bit dumb, but I don't understand" right there and then. 4 times out of 5 it turns out that nobody understands, including the guy talking about it.
Read at least HackerNews and possibly some other tech news site regularly. And then make sure to not get too caught up in the hype for new stuff. As someone working in technology, you are going to be learning new stuff continually (or your usefulness is going to diminish over time). By keeping up to date with tech news, you get a lot of context for what people are using, what's coming down the pipe etc. You may end u…
Interesting because I advise the exact opposite: do not waste time reading HN, just find one thing that is interesting and master it. Then repeat.
As much as I like HN there is a lot of noise here. Novice mind can easily fall into a trap looking for signal here.
1. Don't blindly follow advice of "experts" you read. 2. Don't write clever code, write readable code. Participate in code golf or obfuscation contests to scratch the itch if you have one, but keep it out of production code, even if its a private project that you will never share with anyone; it will save you from yourself.
I think Rob Pike's 5 Rules of Programming[1] are better advice here -- in particular rules 3 through 5.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Being valuable to the person who's employing you is what makes your progress in your career. More importantly learn how to be recognized as valuable. It's better to appear valuable without actually being valuable than being valuable but not recognized, and often you don't even have a good idea what's valuable in the bigger picture on your own so accepting others valuation can help you from being stuck in your bubble…
It looks like this comment is being downvoted because it appears to endorse being deceptive. I’d like to chime in and second the sentiment in slightly different terms: value is not inherently visible. You can waste a lot of time contributing significant invisible value to a company with no recognition or reward. On the other hand, you can provide a small amount of value and receive significant recognition just by mak…
Working on a self directed project that makes tools for other developers can be fun, but if you can't sell the value of that work you should stay on a team that generates obvious features for paying customers. (which is to say work on projects where marketing will sell your work, this indirectly outsourcing making yourself visible to marketing)