Have had many hats on in my life: Developer, Team Lead, Scrum Master, Architect and Product Owner. Now back to developer \o/ Interested in product discovery, quality assurance and language design.
π Hey there, I am Waylon Walker
I am a Husband, Father of two beautiful children, Senior Python Developer currently working in the Data Engineering platform space. I am a continuous learner, and sha
It's impossible to learn everything. There is way too much. Learn about things you need. Maybe a surface level of adjacent things. Build a deep expertise in your core skills.
I sometimes agree to the point you are making here but seeing this person (linkedin.com/in/vimaldaga/ ) always change my mind that you can be expert in anything you want and It is not a waste of time.
π Hey there, I am Waylon Walker
I am a Husband, Father of two beautiful children, Senior Python Developer currently working in the Data Engineering platform space. I am a continuous learner, and sha
I dont think that you can be an expert in anything. Anything is a bit broad. There are always going to be topics that take a lifetime, the right person, a bit of luck, and the right developments in the surrounding industry. These things produce historical figures like "Einstein". There are also going to be things that require teams of people, the chrome "V8 Engine" for instance.
Now can you achieve working expertise at, Software Engineering, Data Science, Business, Entrepreneurship, JavaScript, Python, Blogging, ... Things that are achievable by a broad audience ( requiring a bit less luck and raw talent ).
So true, even Einstein couldn't be an expert at "anything", and he would have been the first to admit it. I guess true mastery lies in knowing your limits!
I checked out his profile, and I see he's an expert (or at least knowledgeable) in cloud/devops and in big data, those 2 fields - not in "everything" (for example, web dev or mobile dev aren't mentioned).
π Hey there, I am Waylon Walker
I am a Husband, Father of two beautiful children, Senior Python Developer currently working in the Data Engineering platform space. I am a continuous learner, and sha
Exactly! That's what I tell some students on calls. Having a structure of work & break times (like the Pomodoro technique)
And the important thing is that when people are working, they try to focus and get stuff done. And when they are taking the break, they fully disengage from pc or phone and just go for a walk, go to the bathroom, make a drink, talk with someone or whatever to make it an actual break.
A Front-End Developer with a passion for learning how people work, the efficacy of good design, and a growing interest in the complexities of functional programming.
Here's one I suspect to be prevalent, or at least it's a bad one of mine:
Never not working on a problem in the back of your mind... Sometimes I keep an issue spinning around in my head all weekend when I'd be better off forgetting about it and coming back on Monday. This probably afflicts me particularly badly as an entrepreneur with a bit more at stake, but I've had this problem in most of my work forever.
That's very true, and it's worse with working from home at the moment. It can mean that I'm not all there for family even if I'm not at my computer. Maybe the key is to take more time out to ponder things during the working day.
In the last couple weeks I've been doing a mid-day workout... Which for me is a weighted-vest walk/light jog with an audiobook. Basically taking my audiobook/podcast habit and making it more of a workout.
The break is nice, and the exercise definitely helps my brain health and gives clarity.
Habits are hard to form, even when I had the idea to take on this routine, the vest sat around unused for several weeks before I truly kicked it in, but now I feel like I'm over the hump and really enjoying making time for it.
No approach/routine works for everyone, but I do think exercise really is about the best thing one can do with any number of feelings of stress, anxiety, etc.
I agree, I need to build a replacement for the weekly parkrun as that made such a difference the last year but it won't start again any time soon I expect
Have had many hats on in my life: Developer, Team Lead, Scrum Master, Architect and Product Owner. Now back to developer \o/ Interested in product discovery, quality assurance and language design.
CTO, Developer, Sysadmin, Network Admin, currently using Clarion on Windows, Drupal for websites, and picking up Ansible for sysadminning. Yes, I wear many hats, why do you ask?
Location
Marietta, Ga
Education
Asbury College, BA in Bible with Computer Science minor
Work
CTO/Developer/Sysadmin/Network Admin at Accelerated Design, Inc
Which may be not only a dev problem, but also a management problem. Tom DeMarco points out that we don't estimate well because we get so little practice at it. What we call 'estimation' is often actually haggling over what the schedule will be, at times going up against an attitude of "What's the earliest you can't prove you won't be done?" Between that and a potential ego motivation to make shorter estimates, it's not surprising that underestimating is common.
Becoming passive-aggressive on pull request reviews because it makes them feel superior and demonstrate their experience. Like a virus that, if someone does it to you as a junior, you'll do it right back as a senior. Kills productivity and becomes totally self-defeating.
I always thought that Programmers and Mathematicians are alike Analytical, Smart, Thinkers, and Introverts. The problems are also the same that includes Overthinking, Unable to fit in with regular people, unable to maintain emotional health, and inability to turn off the mind, just a few thing on the top of my mind.
In my opinion a very harmful one that developers deal with is not separating out home and work. Don't take your work home, and in my opinion that even includes researching and learning for your job.
It's one thing to learn/do more research because you're interested in it and you enjoy it. It's another thing to constantly do work/research for your job outside of work at home. I really believe jobs need to pay and budget that time into your everyday job function. I see this especially with new developers. They feel so much pressure to learn and make their employers happy that they end up burning themselves out by doing all kinds of things outside of normal work hours. That's a big thing I stress when mentoring new developers. Separate out the work and home. Don't feel pressure to catch-up on the weekends.
π Hey there, I am Waylon Walker
I am a Husband, Father of two beautiful children, Senior Python Developer currently working in the Data Engineering platform space. I am a continuous learner, and sha
French web developer mainly but touches everything. Volunteer mod here at DEV. I learn Nuxt at this moment and databases. β Addict to Cappuccino and Music
I've been a professional C, Perl, PHP and Python developer.
I'm an ex-sysadmin from the late 20th century.
These days I do more Javascript and CSS and whatnot, and promote UX and accessibility.
Thinking you're an expert in other fields (like UX or QA or design) because you've been around people who are and you have "real world" experience. I mean, it counts, but unless you've spent a decent amount of time training, it's easy to Dunning-Kruger your way through meetings.
Python programmer, Django developer and SQL slayer. I have been programming for over 10 years; each one of those years has included a bug or 2.
Engineering manager and SRE for Envelop Risk
For some devs it's toxicity. It starts off as a comment here or there and can quickly inflate into a nasty habit. I have worked with some people who are technically brilliant, but they were so toxic (code reviews, one on one (bitching), emails and meetings) . Without realising there actions were deeply impacting the team, junior devs wouldn't ask question, managers would just leave them be. They would start to feel isolated and more toxic.
One lunch a met up with... Dave (I will call them Dave) as part of our company team lunches. He mentioned he is "feeling more and more isolated and he thinks management want to fire" him. After a long chat I felt he was in the right place to be told. I simply said "Dave, management want you here and so do the other devs, I think I know what the problem might be, people feel they cannot approach you to have a positive conversation".
I specifically did not say toxic, and kept it as light as possible.
The real telling moment was when he looked up in realisation and just smiled.
Following that conversation he arranged a lunch date with each person in the team, his whole attitude changed (apart from a few wobbles) he was a completely different guy. It was amazing to see. He went from toxic to positive in weeks. He was one of the few people I knew who could take on criticism and figure it out.
Have had many hats on in my life: Developer, Team Lead, Scrum Master, Architect and Product Owner. Now back to developer \o/ Interested in product discovery, quality assurance and language design.
Probably controversial, but as an OSS maintainer, I feel wanting to be very likable can take a negative toll on one's mind. When your motivational model starts revolving around all users absolutely adoring you, the occasional crass comment can cause you to spiral. I've done this to myself quite a few times and only recently started putting my foot down about things, within reason of course. Striking the balance between being an opinionated maintainer and an oblivious one just gets hard sometimes.
I'm from Aguascalientes, Mexico! now based on New York. Most of my experience is related to code websites and applications, using JavaScript stack-based.
Say YES to everything, sometimes that can lead to work crazy amount of hours.
Work on weekends or after hours, this habit causes a false perception about the productivity of you and your team. So people gradually will keep asking to work like that, specifically, that will end up causing you (and some people too) burnout, frustration and some health issues (the last one happen to some friend already)
Do not refactor on time, sometimes it's better to spend 1 week in something, instead of explaining to your boss something do not have solution anymore and needs to be rewritten
Invest time only in the product, and do not invest time in engineering. People who are not technical will end up saying do A or B is a waste of time, but sometimes, take the time to refactor, simplify, and research how to speed up something will make a huge difference for your team, and the product.
Do no test before push changes
Dismiss other people ideas
Being reactive instead of analytic
Do not communicate things on time
Force people to use your toolset instead of the things they feel comfortable with
Being in a company with no opportunities, this is just a waste of time
Dismiss recommendations without even hear
Force personal opinions instead of facts when making decisions
dev/IoT advocate.
my neurotransmitters enjoy: foodie, penguins, and esoterica (the arts, oddities, antiques).
my demons have funny names: AuDHD/MDD/GAD/cPTSD
Lack of self care. Obsession. Over working. Eating out more.
My worst one was biting my nails. Used to do it kind of as a teen but ever since getting into coding I bite them a LOT and I've been trying to break it for years.
Success is the silent crippler. When people are successful time after time doing something, why would they consider a different way? (Answer of course is because many times there is a BETTER way that also works. And not improving leaves us behind those that do.)
Wasting time arguing over which os or ide or whatever is terrible/perfect but failing to pause and wonder why someone has a different opinion to you in the first place.
CTO, Developer, Sysadmin, Network Admin, currently using Clarion on Windows, Drupal for websites, and picking up Ansible for sysadminning. Yes, I wear many hats, why do you ask?
Location
Marietta, Ga
Education
Asbury College, BA in Bible with Computer Science minor
Work
CTO/Developer/Sysadmin/Network Admin at Accelerated Design, Inc
I've seen this a fair bit with some customers. I've had a few times where I've had to ask the user how they're going about a particular process, only to find out they're doing it in a quite different way than I expected. And what they're doing isn't necessarily wrong - they sometimes know the app I've developed better than I do, because they deal with it every day, while I only deal with it when I'm having to add new features or troubleshoot a bug.
webdev @ Autodesk |
Someone used to call me "Learn more", and I'm spending forever to live up to it. You'll find me dabbling in random stuff π¨βπ» or missing a wide open shot in π
Starting with a "getting started " guide that skips on best practices, security, and testing, and the stackoverflowing through pro lens without ever really learning how the techs work
I think overworking is a major one, and it has caused me to burnout countless times.
Yeah staying awake for a long time at night is a major one!
I got rid of that one after I had many minor health issues last year. Now I value my sleep more than programming or learning
Very true
I'll second this
It's impossible to learn everything. There is way too much. Learn about things you need. Maybe a surface level of adjacent things. Build a deep expertise in your core skills.
Donβt waste your time learning everything
Waylon Walker γ» Feb 19 γ» 2 min read
I sometimes agree to the point you are making here but seeing this person (linkedin.com/in/vimaldaga/ ) always change my mind that you can be expert in anything you want and It is not a waste of time.
What are your views on this?
I dont think that you can be an expert in anything. Anything is a bit broad. There are always going to be topics that take a lifetime, the right person, a bit of luck, and the right developments in the surrounding industry. These things produce historical figures like "Einstein". There are also going to be things that require teams of people, the chrome "V8 Engine" for instance.
Now can you achieve working expertise at, Software Engineering, Data Science, Business, Entrepreneurship, JavaScript, Python, Blogging, ... Things that are achievable by a broad audience ( requiring a bit less luck and raw talent ).
Can you be an expert at anything Heck yes
Can you be an expert at everything Definitely Not
So true, even Einstein couldn't be an expert at "anything", and he would have been the first to admit it. I guess true mastery lies in knowing your limits!
I checked out his profile, and I see he's an expert (or at least knowledgeable) in cloud/devops and in big data, those 2 fields - not in "everything" (for example, web dev or mobile dev aren't mentioned).
π― Big difference between Anything and Everything.
Your own personal talents, skills, and experience limit what is reasonable to go for.
A few that come to mind (and had happened to me before).
I probably could go on and on but those are just a few π
I read that if you take a break, but the break involves another screen, your brain really doesn't actually reap the benefits of the break.
So moving from your computer, plopping on the couch and scrolling Reddit etc. is really not what you want to be doing if you can help it.
Exactly! That's what I tell some students on calls. Having a structure of work & break times (like the Pomodoro technique)
And the important thing is that when people are working, they try to focus and get stuff done. And when they are taking the break, they fully disengage from pc or phone and just go for a walk, go to the bathroom, make a drink, talk with someone or whatever to make it an actual break.
amen..
Please go on and write a post π
Hahaha if it will help you then I'm surely going to schedule that post. π
Whosever is reading this: your posture is probably terrible right now, haha.
It was! Thank you for the correction. Lol
Thanks for the reminder!
Here's one I suspect to be prevalent, or at least it's a bad one of mine:
Never not working on a problem in the back of your mind... Sometimes I keep an issue spinning around in my head all weekend when I'd be better off forgetting about it and coming back on Monday. This probably afflicts me particularly badly as an entrepreneur with a bit more at stake, but I've had this problem in most of my work forever.
That's very true, and it's worse with working from home at the moment. It can mean that I'm not all there for family even if I'm not at my computer. Maybe the key is to take more time out to ponder things during the working day.
In the last couple weeks I've been doing a mid-day workout... Which for me is a weighted-vest walk/light jog with an audiobook. Basically taking my audiobook/podcast habit and making it more of a workout.
The break is nice, and the exercise definitely helps my brain health and gives clarity.
Googling weighted vest now π
Yay!
Habits are hard to form, even when I had the idea to take on this routine, the vest sat around unused for several weeks before I truly kicked it in, but now I feel like I'm over the hump and really enjoying making time for it.
No approach/routine works for everyone, but I do think exercise really is about the best thing one can do with any number of feelings of stress, anxiety, etc.
I agree, I need to build a replacement for the weekly parkrun as that made such a difference the last year but it won't start again any time soon I expect
Saying YES to everything! Sometimes saying NO is a life-saver
Agreed! Also, underestimating is very popular among devs
Which may be not only a dev problem, but also a management problem. Tom DeMarco points out that we don't estimate well because we get so little practice at it. What we call 'estimation' is often actually haggling over what the schedule will be, at times going up against an attitude of "What's the earliest you can't prove you won't be done?" Between that and a potential ego motivation to make shorter estimates, it's not surprising that underestimating is common.
Great one
Becoming passive-aggressive on pull request reviews because it makes them feel superior and demonstrate their experience. Like a virus that, if someone does it to you as a junior, you'll do it right back as a senior. Kills productivity and becomes totally self-defeating.
Developer ego, not having open mind
I always thought that Programmers and Mathematicians are alike Analytical, Smart, Thinkers, and Introverts. The problems are also the same that includes Overthinking, Unable to fit in with regular people, unable to maintain emotional health, and inability to turn off the mind, just a few thing on the top of my mind.
Considering themselves senior enough to ignore practicing.
PS: This is what I am going through
In my opinion a very harmful one that developers deal with is not separating out home and work. Don't take your work home, and in my opinion that even includes researching and learning for your job.
It's one thing to learn/do more research because you're interested in it and you enjoy it. It's another thing to constantly do work/research for your job outside of work at home. I really believe jobs need to pay and budget that time into your everyday job function. I see this especially with new developers. They feel so much pressure to learn and make their employers happy that they end up burning themselves out by doing all kinds of things outside of normal work hours. That's a big thing I stress when mentoring new developers. Separate out the work and home. Don't feel pressure to catch-up on the weekends.
Spending too much time working on a feature that was not needed.
i.e. lack of understanding the business.
Over working and multi-tasking with watching videos or listening to podcasts while coding.
Being impatient with more junior devs as it feels like repeating things you've covered before and that isn't DRY!
Getting used to no more being seated properly in front of your desk.
Thinking you're an expert in other fields (like UX or QA or design) because you've been around people who are and you have "real world" experience. I mean, it counts, but unless you've spent a decent amount of time training, it's easy to Dunning-Kruger your way through meetings.
For some devs it's toxicity. It starts off as a comment here or there and can quickly inflate into a nasty habit. I have worked with some people who are technically brilliant, but they were so toxic (code reviews, one on one (bitching), emails and meetings) . Without realising there actions were deeply impacting the team, junior devs wouldn't ask question, managers would just leave them be. They would start to feel isolated and more toxic.
One lunch a met up with... Dave (I will call them Dave) as part of our company team lunches. He mentioned he is "feeling more and more isolated and he thinks management want to fire" him. After a long chat I felt he was in the right place to be told. I simply said "Dave, management want you here and so do the other devs, I think I know what the problem might be, people feel they cannot approach you to have a positive conversation".
I specifically did not say toxic, and kept it as light as possible.
The real telling moment was when he looked up in realisation and just smiled.
Following that conversation he arranged a lunch date with each person in the team, his whole attitude changed (apart from a few wobbles) he was a completely different guy. It was amazing to see. He went from toxic to positive in weeks. He was one of the few people I knew who could take on criticism and figure it out.
Speaking for myself: starting per projects and quickly get distracted and let them rot
Scrolling through articles text, looking for kittens and code snippets.
Improper distribution of time and thereby not able to focus on other important aspects of life such as Exercise, Health and Family.
Probably controversial, but as an OSS maintainer, I feel wanting to be very likable can take a negative toll on one's mind. When your motivational model starts revolving around all users absolutely adoring you, the occasional crass comment can cause you to spiral. I've done this to myself quite a few times and only recently started putting my foot down about things, within reason of course. Striking the balance between being an opinionated maintainer and an oblivious one just gets hard sometimes.
My 2 cents to the list:
Lack of self care. Obsession. Over working. Eating out more.
My worst one was biting my nails. Used to do it kind of as a teen but ever since getting into coding I bite them a LOT and I've been trying to break it for years.
strong opinions
Doing office work even in weekend ! this increases the stress level and not even chilling in weekend !
Trying XSS attacks on random sites , involuntarily as though that's how internet is meant to be surfed
"We've always done it this way"
Success is the silent crippler. When people are successful time after time doing something, why would they consider a different way? (Answer of course is because many times there is a BETTER way that also works. And not improving leaves us behind those that do.)
Overthinking on a piece of work and make it harder, while a simple and sweet solution is available..
Wasting time arguing over which os or ide or whatever is terrible/perfect but failing to pause and wonder why someone has a different opinion to you in the first place.
A lot of coffee :S
In my country some of the major habits developers get are
Not actually knowing how to use technology since we spend so much time developing it and using it from a different perspective.
I've seen this a fair bit with some customers. I've had a few times where I've had to ask the user how they're going about a particular process, only to find out they're doing it in a quite different way than I expected. And what they're doing isn't necessarily wrong - they sometimes know the app I've developed better than I do, because they deal with it every day, while I only deal with it when I'm having to add new features or troubleshoot a bug.
When I started I face lack of water and sleep
Eating at your work desk.
You don't taste the food and you tend to eat more.
And don't forget the mess lol
Starting with a "getting started " guide that skips on best practices, security, and testing, and the stackoverflowing through pro lens without ever really learning how the techs work
Complacency. Poor commit messages. Lazy refactoring. I've fallen prey to these on both fronts.
Rat race about who is smarter (ends up as burndown)