For paying attention: have you tried to take notes (even if you throw them away afterwards, but you might as well keep them)?
It may force you to focus. It may not work at all. It cannot hurt to try?
Ask HN: Please help me, I'm a bad developer
21–30 of 32 posts
Re: Ask HN: Please help me, I'm a bad developer
#22The advice already given is good, but a few other points I'd like to add: * I also have a degree in Computer Science, but with 18 months of professional development experience I'd still consider you a junior-level developer. In terms of skill level, you're absolutely fine, so don't worry too much about whether you should be better at certain things than others. * I wouldn't expect a junior developer to fully understa…
> In terms of skill level, you're absolutely fine, so don't worry too much about whether you should be better at certain things than others.
They fired me after 2.5 months working on the project, that's why I started to "worry" about my skills. They hired me as the only junior developer and as I think about it more and more, I'm starting to be sure not me wasn't enough, but a junior developer wasn't enough there in general.
Re: Ask HN: Please help me, I'm a bad developer
#23You struggled through the university, but managed to get a degree in computer science. That's awesome. Now focus on training your focus. Attention is a complex neurological activity that's more than the sum of its parts. You must learn to take possession of your mind in a vivid manner of one out of many possible trains of thought. Get enough sleep, exercise, read as much as you can on ADHD/ADD, listen to your body, a…
> You struggled through the university, but managed to get a degree in computer science. That's awesome. Now focus on training your focus.
Thank you for the encouragement!
Re: Ask HN: Please help me, I'm a bad developer
#24I had a similar experience when I first started out and I got fired from my first two development jobs so maybe my experience can help you. Getting good at grocking through existing codebases is an experience thing I feel. You need to understand the frameworks and libraries used, as well as understand the underlying business use cases. You can look through open source projects or build small example projects with the…
Thank you for your answer. I got fired from my two last development jobs too.
I didn't like the first place, I haven't got too much help to even onboard, not talking about learning the codebase or the framework. (One thing I will never ever do again is trying to learn a completely different framework at a new job...)
At the second place however I felt I was pretty good. They mentioned areas to improve (productivity, meetings), but most of the feedbacks were good. Then they fired me. They "expected more improvement".
What is the mistake I shouldn't make again? Am I a bad developer, having problems or just unlucky?
Re: Ask HN: Please help me, I'm a bad developer
#25I had a similar experience when I first started out and I got fired from my first two development jobs so maybe my experience can help you. Getting good at grocking through existing codebases is an experience thing I feel. You need to understand the frameworks and libraries used, as well as understand the underlying business use cases. You can look through open source projects or build small example projects with the…
Thank you for your answer. I got fired from my two last development jobs too. I didn't like the first place, I haven't got too much help to even onboard, not talking about learning the codebase or the framework. (One thing I will never ever do again is trying to learn a completely different framework at a new job...) At the second place however I felt I was pretty good. They mentioned areas to improve (productivity,…
I think the second place might have been a bit of bad luck, bit of not reading between the lines. It sounds like you can code well enough and your co-workers like you if you got positive feedback except for productivity and meeting issues which sounds like you're a good developer, but maybe have issues as an employee.
Are you currently employed and if so is your current place complaining, and if so is it the same things? I know after having been fired I get a bit of anxiety just thinking about those kinds of things even if I am doing well.
As others said on the falling asleep thing, do ask a doctor about it, you may have an attention disorder or sleep disorder.
Also do you participate in the meetings? If not, why? I found if its a meeting I don't need to be in, or can't participate in then its harder to focus and stay awake.
I also find that I am not good at 'using' my ears. I had trouble learning by listening when I was in class, and also by listening in meetings, I need to read something to have a chance at following along often. If you have a similar thing, ask if they can provide some notes or info about the meeting so you can prepare better. That may help.
I find on productivity, making sub-tasks for the day helps a lot. Something like: * send email about x * ask Y about Z * look into A for project B * do ticket D * fix issues from PR for ticket Q * do PRs for persan M and N
and then I just do those as well as I can each day and break them down into smaller tasks if need be. I don't care if I don't finish them really unless it happens a lot, and I add new things as they come up. I also normally make that list in Slack to myself so I can access it wherever I need to. This will give you a good baseline of where you are in terms of daily productivity. Also be sure that if you're doing a whole bunch of non-dev tasks, and they are measuring you on dev tasks, to talk to your manager about it. That's not fair or they be unaware of all the non-dev tasks.
But it sounds like the commonalities that happened in both jobs were not producing enough, and also sleeping or not being attentive in meetings. Work out why those are and fix those.
Does any of that help?
Re: Ask HN: Please help me, I'm a bad developer
#26Existing codebases: I'm starting my first job soon and expect this'll be a challenge for me as well, since it's not covered in curriculi. My plan is to spend some time during the (short) summer break poking at http://aosabook.org/en/index.html . Problem paying attention: It sounds like you might not be getting enough sleep. Best source of knowledge on sleep that I know is https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-201…
Hmm I'm interested in the sleep article you posted but the link doesnt seem to work
Yeah, for some odd reason it doesn't load when I click it either. If I refresh the new tab, it loads though. Weird. Anyway, you should be able to find it easily by doing a web search for 'supermemo sleep'.
Re: Ask HN: Please help me, I'm a bad developer
#27Understanding existing codebases is something that takes experience, time and drive (money, rep, etc). There are some codebases that I had trouble with because they weren't even decent. Tools like grep, looking at previous commits and an open notes file are good tools.
Meetings are hard if you aren't engaged as part of the meeting. Maybe it is ADHD and you can get counseling/advice on how to handle meetings. I think this is something where a little counseling from a real professional is going to benefit you the most.
Re: Ask HN: Please help me, I'm a bad developer
#28The advice already given is good, but a few other points I'd like to add: * I also have a degree in Computer Science, but with 18 months of professional development experience I'd still consider you a junior-level developer. In terms of skill level, you're absolutely fine, so don't worry too much about whether you should be better at certain things than others. * I wouldn't expect a junior developer to fully understa…
> In terms of skill level, you're absolutely fine, so don't worry too much about whether you should be better at certain things than others. They fired me after 2.5 months working on the project, that's why I started to "worry" about my skills. They hired me as the only junior developer and as I think about it more and more, I'm starting to be sure not me wasn't enough, but a junior developer wasn't enough there in g…
Ah, sadly that's fairly standard - hire a cheap junior developer, expect the world of them, and fire them if they show even the first sign of not being able to do everything they ask with 100% certainty.
It may not seem like it, but it's a good thing to experience a shitty company, because you'll learn as much from how to not do things as you will from the "right" way.
A lot of people have touched on the focusing part. To be honest, I think that you sound like an absolutely normal developer, and all you need is an opportunity to grow at a good company. Out of interest, have you considered working at an agency? In my experience, they're a nice place to start out, because you get to work on numerous small to medium sied code bases over the space of a year, and the breadth of work allows you to build your experience while keeping time pressure on.
Re: Ask HN: Please help me, I'm a bad developer
#29Do you like programming? If you can say yes continue. You probably struggle with similar problems we all have. It's not particularly your fault.
Re: Ask HN: Please help me, I'm a bad developer
#30> - I'm not good at understanding existing codebases. It is not that I can't fix a single bug or implement a new feature, it is just I'm slow. How can I improve this? I'm looking for something like a job simulation at home, like list of tasks to do in an existing codebase, with explanation or even guidance. I don't want to start another stupid practice project at home while I stress myself out about when will I find…
I would strongly emphatise 1) Get enough sleep! For motivation and general guidance on getting enough sleep please read the book "Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams" by Matthew Walker.