11–20 of 327 posts
> If you can't easily explain why something is difficult, then it's incidental complexity, which is probably worth addressing
That's a real eye-opener. Hope I remember this next time I implement something complex. The thing is, I don't think this stuff would've helped me much when I was a junior dev. A lot of them are just too nuanced.
This one is good and has been following me since I've became a manager. Thanks to you, I know how to apply that objection to "press" people when I feel we're dealing with this kind of complexity.
When I began coding I spent hours tweaking my vimrc file and learning all the essentially random shortcuts, and dealing with the absurdities of vimscript. (and debugging vim plugins that broke each other.) It felt like actual work while I was producing nothing.
Now I just open vscode with default settings and I am productive right away. Who cares about editors, vscode is good enough.
But maybe just vim sucks and I should have been playing with emacs all along, I don't know.
The one thing I disagree is the thing about editors. When I began coding I spent hours tweaking my vimrc file and learning all the essentially random shortcuts, and dealing with the absurdities of vimscript. (and debugging vim plugins that broke each other.) It felt like actual work while I was producing nothing. Now I just open vscode with default settings and I am productive right away. Who cares about editors, vsc…
Those are way too abstract advice when you start programming. You can only understand them because you lived those situations, which implies experience you don't have. I would say (specifically to my young self): - There is no substitute for doing. Less tutorials, more coding. - Stop being obsessed with quality: you are not at the level where you can provide it yet. Do dirty. Do badly. But ship. Some people will be m…
I have a very severe case of impostor syndrome. :(
Those are way too abstract advice when you start programming. You can only understand them because you lived those situations, which implies experience you don't have. I would say (specifically to my young self): - There is no substitute for doing. Less tutorials, more coding. - Stop being obsessed with quality: you are not at the level where you can provide it yet. Do dirty. Do badly. But ship. Some people will be m…
A bit snarky, but I would add - don’t read opinions from a list and take it as gospel. Adapt to the jobs you’re in, and you’ll develop your own opinions, but now with experience to explain why. Opinions are formed by getting repeatedly hit with the consequences of your (and other’s) decisions, and everyone just has to take enough hits till the pattern seeking area of your brain takes over.
For example, if you can’t decide between two data structures or tech, pick one and add a comment:
// I’m not sure
To avoid the mess, design with the fail-fast principle in mind, which brings you closer to the spot where an error occurred.
Those are way too abstract advice when you start programming. You can only understand them because you lived those situations, which implies experience you don't have. I would say (specifically to my young self): - There is no substitute for doing. Less tutorials, more coding. - Stop being obsessed with quality: you are not at the level where you can provide it yet. Do dirty. Do badly. But ship. Some people will be m…
* This * - The users don't care about the tech. They care about the result.
Those are way too abstract advice when you start programming. You can only understand them because you lived those situations, which implies experience you don't have. I would say (specifically to my young self): - There is no substitute for doing. Less tutorials, more coding. - Stop being obsessed with quality: you are not at the level where you can provide it yet. Do dirty. Do badly. But ship. Some people will be m…
This may be good advice for yourself in the past, and for many people at lots of times, but I'd hesitate to give it as general advice. Reading code others have written should not be understated as way to learn valuable things from fundamental patterns and algorithms to language features and idioms. If you have a job in a team, this may happen anyway, but it's possible to write lots of code without realizing there's a better way.
Those are way too abstract advice when you start programming. You can only understand them because you lived those situations, which implies experience you don't have. I would say (specifically to my young self): - There is no substitute for doing. Less tutorials, more coding. - Stop being obsessed with quality: you are not at the level where you can provide it yet. Do dirty. Do badly. But ship. Some people will be m…
You'll reach the level you want to avoid doing all this.
What if future you has reached that level and people on your team are shipping spaghetti?