Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer
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Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer
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Re: Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer
#2Existing discussion on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/cv6tnu/self_po...
Re: Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer
#3> Good engineers themselves design systems that are more robust and easier to understand by others. This has a multiplier effect, letting their colleagues build upon their work much more quickly and reliably - How to Build Good Software
The advice above is probably one of the things which would have the most impact across all your activities as a developer. When people talk about simplicity in software, they don’t necessarily refer to ease of use or number of lines of code, but instead it’s about how understandable a solution is given their shared knowledge.
Re: Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer
#4The referenced idea of a 'human log' is great[0]. I started doing something similar 4 years ago and it eventually evolved from per-project notes into a full diary. Being able to search for 'August 24 2016' and know exactly what I did that day is quite powerful.
I encourage anyone to take 10 minutes(or 30...) at the end of the day to write up what they've done. Just a text file with minimal formatting has scaled to 2.6MB of hand-typed text. Though, after a bit, I've tended to shard out specific long-running topics into their own files.
Re: Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer
#5The referenced idea of a 'human log' is great[0]. I started doing something similar 4 years ago and it eventually evolved from per-project notes into a full diary. Being able to search for 'August 24 2016' and know exactly what I did that day is quite powerful. I encourage anyone to take 10 minutes(or 30...) at the end of the day to write up what they've done. Just a text file with minimal formatting has scaled to 2.…
Indeed! Thanks Everlag!
I think it's been the top productivity hack in my life.
Not only did it help me keep my thoughts in check, but it became a solid base for me to bundle other habits on top. If I keep a daily log of stuff (one I look forward to because it's super useful - not just a calendar) , all I have to do is add a new column for a new habit I'm tracking, and everyday I'm forced to put in a Yes or a No, which then snowballs into the "Don't break the chain!".
Re: Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer
#6I think this is pretty good.
As a pretty senior dev myself I always tell people to have an actual design in mind. Know what you are trying to achieve and when something goes wrong you should be able to explain what you expected the system to do on that situation . A lot of people don’t seem to have a clear mental image of the end goal but are overwhelmed .
Of course you should be flexible but you need to know where you want to be in order to make good decisions.
Re: Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer
#7The referenced idea of a 'human log' is great[0]. I started doing something similar 4 years ago and it eventually evolved from per-project notes into a full diary. Being able to search for 'August 24 2016' and know exactly what I did that day is quite powerful. I encourage anyone to take 10 minutes(or 30...) at the end of the day to write up what they've done. Just a text file with minimal formatting has scaled to 2.…
Yeah, I've been doing this since the start of 2013. Last thing I do each day along with filling out my time card.
I usually recap what I worked on, conversations I had, other project / teammate updates, where I left off, stuff I learned or fixed, and where I need to pick up the next day.
I used RedNotebook for the first few years, then switched to Boostnote because of its Markdown support and snippet syntax highlighting. One note per day, organized into folders by month.
It also is hugely valuable when performance review season rolls around. I can go through the whole year in a few minutes and remind myself of all the tasks I worked on, then summarize those in the "what I did" section.
Re: Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer
#8I was already forgetting things I learnt. They either became so internalized that my mind tricked me into believing I always knew them, or they slipped my mind.
The best time to write a tutorial is as you learn a thing yourself. You learn it better for doing it and others benefit from it more because it automatically comes from a beginners perspective.
Re: Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer
#9Makes me a little ill that the author thinks Jeff Atwood coined that old-ass joke.
Re: Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer
#10The referenced idea of a 'human log' is great[0]. I started doing something similar 4 years ago and it eventually evolved from per-project notes into a full diary. Being able to search for 'August 24 2016' and know exactly what I did that day is quite powerful. I encourage anyone to take 10 minutes(or 30...) at the end of the day to write up what they've done. Just a text file with minimal formatting has scaled to 2.…
I do this on a weekly basis. I used to just do it in a Google Doc, but earlier this year, I wrote an app so I could share my log entries publicly. I've been publishing my weeks since March:
https://whatgotdone.com/michael
I tried for a few months to make a business out of it, but there wasn't much interest, so I'm planning to open source the code in the next couple weeks.
A bit more about my motivation in creating this: https://mtlynch.io/status-updates-to-nobody/