Absolute truths I unlearned as junior developer

Post by Kalium » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #18

beat wrote: post #15

Admittedly, my first days as a junior programmer were before some of you were born, but I'm thinking of a particular format here... Learned as junior: If you report an OS bug or some other deep problem, seniors will not believe you and assume you're making excuses for your own bugs and lack of understanding. Understood as senior: If a junior programmer tells me they found a system-level bug, I won't believe them and…

> Understood as senior: Communication skills matter most. can you give examples ?

Post by bumby » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #14

taneq wrote: post #7

The big one for me was the realisation that the code doesn't matter . I mean sure, it does, to us. It's what we do. But really, code doesn't matter. To the end user, what matters is that we solve their problem. We let them do their job, and we make that job as easy as possible. And that's what they pay us for. And to the company we work for, what matters is that we solve the end user's problem, and that we do so in a…

Then you have technical debt. Wordpress appeared good to end users, but we know how it is underneath and all the problem you get along[0]. It's a fine balance for sure, and forgetting that solving the problem first is what matters is a mistake indeed. [0] about that, there seem to be a 'foot in the door' effect at play. If you get users with a good enough but imperfect product, they won't mind too much if you take re…

Post by bdcravens » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #14

taneq wrote: post #7

The big one for me was the realisation that the code doesn't matter . I mean sure, it does, to us. It's what we do. But really, code doesn't matter. To the end user, what matters is that we solve their problem. We let them do their job, and we make that job as easy as possible. And that's what they pay us for. And to the company we work for, what matters is that we solve the end user's problem, and that we do so in a…

Then you have technical debt. Wordpress appeared good to end users, but we know how it is underneath and all the problem you get along[0]. It's a fine balance for sure, and forgetting that solving the problem first is what matters is a mistake indeed. [0] about that, there seem to be a 'foot in the door' effect at play. If you get users with a good enough but imperfect product, they won't mind too much if you take re…

Post by agumonkey » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #22

agumonkey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Understood as senior: Communication skills matter most. can you give examples ?

I once worked with a brilliant engineer. He was from Hong Kong. He struggled to express his ideas in English. We tended to let him show us in code instead. Sometimes this worked. Sometimes it really, really didn't. It also meant we had a very difficult time discussing larger architectural questions with him or giving him useful feedback on his code.

Post by colpabar » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

noobiemcfoob wrote: post #19

lukejduncan wrote: post #11

"Loads of companies and startups have little or no tests" which should scare you, or at least it would scare me if I joined a team. You can definitely over test, but how can you possibly know what you built works (or still works when you change it for the 50th time) if you have no tests? There's a trade-off with testing. Early in the dev cycle, not testing can make you go super fast (supposedly, this hasn't been my p…

A workflow using the code is a itself a type of test. If something breaks, the users will tell you. A lot of code ends up in that space because it was never asked for as an actual project, but now a team relies on it but no developer can be officially assigned to it.