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How to Become a Better Developer

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Re: How to Become a Better Developer

#11

Post by poulsbohemian »

tieTYT wrote: post #6

Something missed in this article is the need to reflect and have personal retrospectives. Back when you first learned to code, you may have chosen names for your variables like `foo` and `bar`. This was fine when you're learning how an if statement or a for loop works. But once your program gets a little more complex it's hard to keep track of what `foo` or `bar` represent. I notice a lot of people who run into these…

>> the need to reflect and have personal retrospectives

+1 can't say enough good about this point. True not only of being a good software developer, but really anything meaningful we do in life.

Re: How to Become a Better Developer

#12

Post by auggierose »

tieTYT wrote: post #6

Something missed in this article is the need to reflect and have personal retrospectives. Back when you first learned to code, you may have chosen names for your variables like `foo` and `bar`. This was fine when you're learning how an if statement or a for loop works. But once your program gets a little more complex it's hard to keep track of what `foo` or `bar` represent. I notice a lot of people who run into these…

I can understand this attitude, working for other people is pretty boring.

The best developers work for themselves.

Re: How to Become a Better Developer

#13

Post by angryasian »

while he touched on learning from more advanced engineers, the number one way I found to be better is to actually read their code. Look at many of the best open source projects and even the source code for the language you're using. You'll learn a lot.

Re: How to Become a Better Developer

#14

Post by bitsweet »

j4pe wrote: post #5

This post belongs to Shawn McCool of Big Name ( http://heybigname.com/2013/01/21/how-to-become-a-better-deve... ). Though he was credited, I think we should use the original content source when possible. McCool does make some excellent points and his contributions to Laravel and other projects have been very helpful to me.

thanks for calling our attention to this. We've updated the post so it directs readers to the original source.

Re: How to Become a Better Developer

#15

Post by tieTYT »

auggierose wrote: post #12
tieTYT wrote: post #6

Something missed in this article is the need to reflect and have personal retrospectives. Back when you first learned to code, you may have chosen names for your variables like `foo` and `bar`. This was fine when you're learning how an if statement or a for loop works. But once your program gets a little more complex it's hard to keep track of what `foo` or `bar` represent. I notice a lot of people who run into these…

I can understand this attitude, working for other people is pretty boring. The best developers work for themselves.

I don't think I agree with this statement.

1. I think you can get some pretty interesting assignments even if you work for someone else.

2. I've worked with developers that work for themselves (contracts/consultants) who write code that's difficult to maintain.

Re: How to Become a Better Developer

#16

Post by vdaniuk »

bitsweet wrote: post #14
j4pe wrote: post #5

This post belongs to Shawn McCool of Big Name ( http://heybigname.com/2013/01/21/how-to-become-a-better-deve... ). Though he was credited, I think we should use the original content source when possible. McCool does make some excellent points and his contributions to Laravel and other projects have been very helpful to me.

thanks for calling our attention to this. We've updated the post so it directs readers to the original source.

That is a really great policy, if you do that with all posts!

Re: How to Become a Better Developer

#17

Post by bitsweet »

vdaniuk wrote: post #16
bitsweet wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks for calling our attention to this. We've updated the post so it directs readers to the original source.

That is a really great policy, if you do that with all posts!

when we are aware of it, we do it.

Re: How to Become a Better Developer

#18

Post by lazerwalker »

auggierose wrote: post #12
tieTYT wrote: post #6

Something missed in this article is the need to reflect and have personal retrospectives. Back when you first learned to code, you may have chosen names for your variables like `foo` and `bar`. This was fine when you're learning how an if statement or a for loop works. But once your program gets a little more complex it's hard to keep track of what `foo` or `bar` represent. I notice a lot of people who run into these…

I can understand this attitude, working for other people is pretty boring. The best developers work for themselves.

That's my personal opinion as well (that working for other people is generally boring), but I don't think it follows for all developers (or all of "the best developers").

What I do think is true is that the best developers you read about online tend to work for themselves. But there's selection bias there: succeeding as an independent (whether as a consultant or building your own product) tends to require a keen sense of self-marketing, and on top of that having online communities to connect with (HN, OSS, etc) is especially appealing when you don't have coworkers in the same office as you to shoot the shit with.

Re: How to Become a Better Developer

#19

Post by stephenbez »

auggierose wrote: post #12
tieTYT wrote: post #6

Something missed in this article is the need to reflect and have personal retrospectives. Back when you first learned to code, you may have chosen names for your variables like `foo` and `bar`. This was fine when you're learning how an if statement or a for loop works. But once your program gets a little more complex it's hard to keep track of what `foo` or `bar` represent. I notice a lot of people who run into these…

I can understand this attitude, working for other people is pretty boring. The best developers work for themselves.

I disagree.

When you work for a company, you get to handle challenges that only come at a certain scale. For example, working just by yourself, you are unlikely to deal with huge distributed systems, or scaling an application to millions of users.

Getting good feedback is critical to improving as a developer. I've learned so much by working with others and picking up on stuff they have done.

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