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Discussion on: Top 9 Lessons learned in 12 years as a software developer.

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Ashley Sheridan

Really great points, and I think #8 can really tie in with #3, those bridges you're building are with teammates too, and a good team should have a spread of skills. There's no shame in not knowing everything, and it's a good thing to ask for help from someone more experienced with that thing. I've been developing in a professional capacity for just over 15 years, and as a hobby for about a decade more than that. The more I learn, the more I find that I don't know. This is a vast field, impossible for any one person to know it all. But a healthy spread of knowledge, coupled with knowing when to ask for help, that's what will get a good developer into the realms of a really good developer.

The only thing I might disagree on is the diversification (#9). I think that's one of those "it depends" situations. A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one, as the saying goes. I'll agree that spreading yourself too thin too early is probably not a good approach, but learning a bit about all of your surrounding fields can really help. But, that should be tempered by learning the basics first as you rightly point out. Learning a dozen different JS frameworks/libraries won't help if you don't know semantic HTML or basic accessibility, for example.

But great post, thank you.