Kind of off topic, as it’s instead a tool, but buying a Jetbrains license was a big win for me. If you put in the time to learn it, it really does give you superpowers. You won’t 10x your productivity, think more like 1.5x, but IMO that is huge for something you spend so much time with as a software engineer.
Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?
191–200 of 553 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?
#192I found that (for me !) it was less useful to invest in learning to do new things, as opposed to investing in being more efficient and / or having my work time more pleasant. Make your work feel like pleasure and there is no limit to what you can achieve. So maybe don't only think "what can I be better at ?" but also "how can my life be better while I work ?". Software: A proper training session with a high level deb…
I love my Bose QC 35! The problem lately is I can't find any current music that is appealing to me. Alas, I must be getting old.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?
#193As many others have said, books are the best things I've spent money on, but let me say more: Do books sometimes say things that are obvious? Yes. For example, when I first read Martin Fowler's book Refactoring, I had been renaming variables and moving methods from one class to another for years. But he gave a new framework for thinking about something that obvious. I've found the idea of separating out my coding flo…
I had the reaction when reading a preprint of Domain Driven Design. It was packed with ideas which were just coming into focus in my own mind after 10 years in the industry, but I didn't have names for them or have them systematized. It's a terrific feeling reading a well-written book like that and going 'Yes! Yes! Yes!'. (Since then, as with many things in our industry, it seems the book has been turned into a buzzw…
The book itself has turned into a consulting money grab, or DDD as a concept?
Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?
#194As a founder / CTO the best money I have spent is on a really good coach. My coach (my cofounder's too, and now some of our leadership team) doesn't have particular expertise in founding or leading companies, but works with many founders, and she's not technical, but the things I think I have found hardest to learn are mostly around people management and leadership, which I think are underrated skills that require se…
I'm considering hiring a coach to improve my soft skills. The problem is finding the right person. Do you have any tips on how to find such person? Edit: software -> soft I mean stuff like better communication, goal setting, learning strategies, negotiation skills...
Best way to learn is through doing different challenges for yourself. A good psychologist can help you setup a plan and program without any out of pocket expenses besides co pay. Problem is finding one that uses evidence based therapy and isn’t a quack. Look for someone with a degree from a good university that specializes in anxiety
Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?
#195Not money spent, but time wise, doing YC's startup school a couple years ago. https://www.startupschool.org/library
Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?
#196Two things I've focused on improving lately are:
- Improving my typing speed and technique (there are many free web sites to do this) and
- Improving my algorithm skills by doing exercises on HackerRank and Exercism.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?
#197If your budget is a few hundred, an IntelliJ Ultimate license. For me it's a force multiplier. Built-in highlights of things that can be improved (e.g. linting) is a bonus. In the end, things like VS Code are just text editors. I mean, you can't get a warning that the `[]` syntax isn't available in your old codebase's flavor of PHP (5.2) in VS Code. I think. Alternatively: Take time off. If you have enough money to l…
The way I like to think of it: VSCode is a text editor with plugins, Jetbrains is an IDE.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?
#198Conferences, for the folks you meet and connections you make, not the Conferenc talks themselves.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?
#199I once did a two-day workshop on negotiation techniques, which covered not only methods but also helped me to become more comfortable dealing with the psychological stress that's induced in many negotiation situations. So far I'd say the course (which was free as I won it as a prize in a business plan competition) is directly responsible for at least 50-100.000 € of additional revenue that I made in the last years, s…
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Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?
#200ISC2 CISSP Course book - https://www.amazon.com/Official-ISC-Guide-CISSP-CBK/dp/11194...
Now it's the 5th edition. I read this a decade ago when it was the second edition. I just the book and was able to then pass the test. This is a great book to learn about security even if you don't care to certify. Judging from many comments I have seen on Hacker News most software developers really have absolutely no idea what security really is. CISSP remains the industry gold standard for security.
WCAG 2.0 - https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/
WCAG is the gold standard for accessibility. Most governments including the US government conforms to WCAG for accessibility guidance and criteria.