41–50 of 538 posts
I also wish I had known to buy some Bitcoin.
- Don't stress about code coverage metrics. - Don't use the next big thing before actually understanding the benefits only because someone else tells you to. (Looking at you, Angular and Docker!) - Stay away from programmers who have strong opinions about certain things. Most of them can't back them up with skill.
I'm curious, what do you not like about Docker?
Keep your work code as simple as humanly possible.
Do your experimentation elsewhere (using the time gained by keeping your work code simple).
Your future-self, your co-workers, and your client will be grateful.
Apart from startups: in startup, technical bullshit is replaced with business bullshit.
If I could go back in time and give myself advice it would be: 0) Nothing is too hard to do, no matter how much those doing it might seem like towering titans many levels above you, or how out of your reach it may seem. Nothing is too hard, there are only things that take time, and things that take more time. If you put in the work, those titans will be your peers before you realise it. Of course, you can't do everyt…
That shipping stable software that works and meets requirements is what people really want. In other words, what the non-tech business people want, or your customers want, is software that fixes their problems, makes their lives easier or makes them more money. It's easy for us programmers to become fixated on using a newer JS framework, a slightly tighter Java loop or the latest cool language. Took me a few years to…
However, there are special cases where you are exposed to a new technology which enables new outcomes.
I was fortunate enough to blunder into using the Web in '92 and Java in early '95 and they were tools where the "how" did matter quite a lot...
[NB I haven't touched Java in a dozen years or so]
Spend your early career, to the maximum extent possible, in well-run organizations surrounded by supportive, skilled teams, so that you can optimize for skill growth and (secondarily at first, but growing over time) for individually attributable impact/ownership.
Honorable mention: AppAmaGooBookSoft hire mere mortals, too, and mid-career salary expectations at them are $300k.
- Use tools and programming language that you personally enjoy, not the one trending on tech sites like Hacker News
- Focus on mastering at least one programming language