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How to grow into your best developer self

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Re: How to grow into your best developer self

#11

Post by smnc »

nizze wrote: post #9
xzion wrote: post #8

I just can't agree with the recommendation to read the comments before articles you find online. Critical thinking is such an important skill for everyone, not just engineers, and this habit all but eliminates it. You go into an article with a framed opinion of what it's trying to convey, and spend the time reading the article looking for confirmation of that opinion rather than thinking critically for yourself. This…

The comment section is pure gold for discovering contrasting opinions - which will feed critical thinking. Reading what ever article while remembering different opinions from comment section gives a really nice insight. Totally agree about the top comments. Not that valuable and some times even misleading/manipulated/bought/nasty.

We should bump this up to the top.

Re: How to grow into your best developer self

#13

Post by treehau5 »

NobleLie wrote: post #10
nizze wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment section is pure gold for discovering contrasting opinions - which will feed critical thinking. Reading what ever article while remembering different opinions from comment section gives a really nice insight. Totally agree about the top comments. Not that valuable and some times even misleading/manipulated/bought/nasty.

His whole point is that reading comments first is the mistake. It primes you with thoughts and opinions with little to no cognition required (recognizing they still may be valuable, but those comments will be there after your analysis...) What we really need is to develop our own critical reading skills, how to connect dots on our own etc. I agree that seeing others comments first before starting that process might b…

Most just don't have the luxury of critically analyzing things these days at their work -- the goal is to produce as fast and as much as possible. I find reading the comment sections first helps me gauge what exactly is important in the article and what the takeaways are -- from both angles. Then I can go back to work.

Re: How to grow into your best developer self

#14

Post by slmyers »

k__ wrote: post #5

Finding a mentor probably helps most and is the hardest. I know a few good people who wouldn't have got where they are without a mentor. I never found one and I'm 10 years in the game now. So I'm probably cursed to mediocrity, haha.

Call me a pessimist but I doubt the vast majority of people will ever find true mentorship. Would it be nice to have a more experienced and talented developer take a personal interest in your career and technical development? yes, of course it would, but it's unlikely at best. I'm sure self study, discipline and "grit" matter far more.

Re: How to grow into your best developer self

#16

Post by Kenji »

How do you find a mentor?? When I was at uni, I would often go to the professors and talk about some details and difficulties, and that helped me a great deal, but now that I am out of uni, there is barely anyone in my environment who could be my mentor. And those who could be a mentor know that their time is extremely valuable and are terribly busy.

Re: How to grow into your best developer self

#17

Post by gkafkg8y8 »

xzion wrote: post #8

I just can't agree with the recommendation to read the comments before articles you find online. Critical thinking is such an important skill for everyone, not just engineers, and this habit all but eliminates it. You go into an article with a framed opinion of what it's trying to convey, and spend the time reading the article looking for confirmation of that opinion rather than thinking critically for yourself. This…

> Definitely read the comments.

I agree. I'm very senior now, bordering on ancient (or at least in the last part of the age tail), and especially over the past 8-10 years (perhaps back to 18 years if you consider the explosion of OOP/OOD and Java to be a tagalong trend) group-think has been a serious problem in development.

The problem with group-think is that that it isn't moderate thinking that is an average of all well-informed people. It can be influenced by a few that have good design skills and say things in a way that people want to believe. I personally have just said whatever came to mind, bullshitting because I was bored, and got many karma points for comments that I'd not thought out, and have definitely seen other comments that were similar. This is especially true when you are shooting down what could be good ideas. A lot of us just like to argue for arguments' sake. Now, a lot of times that is good, but it is very important to try things out that you on your own think are reasonable and see for yourself.

For example, what if HN had been around when PhP was developed and a group of bored naysayers had shot it down because it wasn't organized enough and would promote bad practices. Those things were true- you could write bad PhP code. However, a lot of what exists today was born of people just having fun coding in PhP, and those people wouldn't have learned from their time in PhP, because it never would have come about.

Re: How to grow into your best developer self

#18

Post by Clubber »

Kenji wrote: post #16

How do you find a mentor?? When I was at uni, I would often go to the professors and talk about some details and difficulties, and that helped me a great deal, but now that I am out of uni, there is barely anyone in my environment who could be my mentor. And those who could be a mentor know that their time is extremely valuable and are terribly busy.

Try your team lead. Don't expect long philosophical conversations, but if they do a code review, make sure to ask "why?". Not like, "why, you dumbass?" but "why did you make that decision, what are the pro's and con's?"

I used to send emails to my favorite professors just to say hi, or to ask questions, I'm sure they enjoyed the conversation as much as I did.

Re: How to grow into your best developer self

#19

Post by derrickdirge »

sjclemmy wrote: post #6
k__ wrote: post #5

Finding a mentor probably helps most and is the hardest. I know a few good people who wouldn't have got where they are without a mentor. I never found one and I'm 10 years in the game now. So I'm probably cursed to mediocrity, haha.

I too would welcome a mentor! I've often thought this would be a good social network - online mentoring. Lots of upside for the mentee, not sure about the mentor...

The upside for the mentor is that their methods are carried through to the next generation of developers.

Re: How to grow into your best developer self

#20

Post by larry_pi »

Clubber wrote: post #18
Kenji wrote: post #16

How do you find a mentor?? When I was at uni, I would often go to the professors and talk about some details and difficulties, and that helped me a great deal, but now that I am out of uni, there is barely anyone in my environment who could be my mentor. And those who could be a mentor know that their time is extremely valuable and are terribly busy.

Try your team lead. Don't expect long philosophical conversations, but if they do a code review, make sure to ask "why?". Not like, "why, you dumbass?" but "why did you make that decision, what are the pro's and con's?" I used to send emails to my favorite professors just to say hi, or to ask questions, I'm sure they enjoyed the conversation as much as I did.

I can definitely agree with this. Even though I've only held a couple of individual training sessions, the worst ones are where nobody asks anything and people just leave. No feedback on whether this session was any good or did I just completely blew it.

I'll gladly hang around to address any questions. It shows that you're genuinely interested in the matter. Don't be afraid of coming across as a beginner either - asking questions is how you learn.

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