Fun fact: I found out from an Adobe insider that they'd officially decided to discontinue Flash in 2012. Adobe sold me a license in 2013. That's what we call "a scam", boys and girls.
In fact I think it was not so bad π ActionScript was a pretty good language and the Flash IDE was a good tool for quick animations. It just shouldn't have tried to take the place of HTML imho π
That's what puzzled me β Flash used vector graphics, so it should have been ultra lightweight, but for the most part the heft of each file was ridiculous.
A lot of it was boilerplate, bitmap skins, additional libraries, etc. When I tore into the inner workings, only certain core libraries were actually needed to render something by the flash player. Oh the days of OO AS3 π€Έ. We basically used vectors drawn with code.
I'm a friendly, non-dev, cisgender guy from NC who enjoys playing music/making noise, hiking, eating veggies, and hanging out with my best friend/wife + our 3 kitties + 1 greyhound.
I was surprised to find out a few months ago just how alive the PHP ecosystem is. Lots of good work being done to bring modern development and deployment paradigms to the language.
The worst advice I ever received (in programming, at least) was something to the effect of "leave programming to the educated professionals; stop invading/infecting our world". It was 20 years ago when I went to a forum asking for help on something basic, yes, I was clearly a novice, and I expressed that my only interest was as a hobbyist to give them an idea of how to help me and he commenced to go on a page long rant about all the "idiots" wasting valuable data storage space and bandwidth (these were bigger issues back then). This is why I always pre apologize for wasting forum posts (if it seems like something I should know already) on the rare occasion I do need help anymore. Old habit, hard to break. The pretentiousness of experienced programmers was far worse than it is today (though we still have the Stack Overflow :().
If I had taken his advice and given up I never would have built all the utilities on my machines and on the net that make my "hobbyist" life happy. I'm addicted to anything programmatic/problem solving. Just comes naturally and makes me feel amazing. Truly helps me with lots of issues, not just in computing.
I've had countless experiences like this throughout the years with these types and lots of them are frustrated they spend all the money on an education and expect everyone else to have to do the same.
I love helping people and do it regardless if I get anything out of it or not and I pay the help I've received forward any time I can.
Although some of the devs get to be like that in my opinion, as they did a lot for something and should have an excuse SOMETIMES (hey we all get in bad mood and make misstakes), most of these behave as they are affraid that people who didn't waste their lifes reading all books ever written about it, are gonna take their jobs and the only thing they were good at will be taken away and they will be exposed that it's not so hard to do their job. I guess it's not only devs but a lot of things connected somehow to sinence or actual science. Take for instance doctors, if you eve think that there might be a different way to solve your health issues automatically tag on a forehead as conspiracy theorists. I had some bad cases with medical professionals were they made wrong calls because tests indicated something. It's like if people see them as other human beings who also makes mistakes world will end
I can agree, some people can be very toxic to a community as a whole, on the other hand its great that you didn't let it get to you and kept up what you want to do.
At my college internship (c. 2010), one of the senior engineers (non-software) said my CS degree would be worthless because A.I. would be writing all code in a couple of years and to put all my money in gold.
That language matters in programming. Fun fact, it almost doesn't. unless it is a specific case, or a language isn't 100% able to take on the majority of a task, the language doesn't matter.
C# and Rust are funny and cool. Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. Indie game developer with a focus on RPG's because life sucks and I want a better one.
I write from time to time.
Views expressed are my own and may not represent the opinions of any entity with which I have been, am now, or will be affiliated.
The idea is to make verbose code, itβs the main difference I observe in programmers relative to their experience level.
Novices tend to make messy complex code riddled with or needing comments & experienced programmers make simple/short code that uses sane naming and formatting so comments become pointless.
Correct if Iβm wrong please, I feel like I would need that lesson. :D
Good names help make it easier to understand what the code is doing compared to using variables like a and b and method names like my_func1 but it doesn't explain things like "why you wrote the code", "how it's intended to be used", etc.
Some devs might end up with this idea that as long as they write clean beautiful verbose code, comments won't be needed.
I would have to disagree, intent and why' can be conveyed.
It requires extra thought tho, which is what the quote is trying to encourage.
It's not meant to be taken literally.
Take fx.
// I'm gonna assume this is the unix cat command maybe?// I have no idea what data is.. this could be anything.functioncat(data){...}// Gonna assume this returns a Cat embedded in the inputfunctiongetCat(from){...}// Gonna assume this generate's a new cat from the inputfunctiongenerateCat(from){...}// My comments make sense here btw. :)// Since i am actually commenting' on my' thoughts.// Not what is going on in the code.
The intent is conveyed using verbs and subjects.
This communicates the message or intent shorter, usually meaning better.
The subjects i should know what is based on context and documentation.
The quote "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." - Someone
Fully encompasses the idea.
I'l flip through you article now, thank you for taking the time to write it. :)
// Edit, ps, worth noting, with types, the verbosity and intent here could be much improved.
I can't even get my family to use stuff I've built unless it really truly absolutely solves their problem and it is blatantly obvious without explanation.
Started coding at the age of 13, now a professional software engineer and Scrum Master, creating and maintaining enterprise solutions. Eat - Sleep - Code - Lift - Repeat πͺπΎ
One guy I use to work with constantly told me to choose shorter variables names, even if it was clear there were harder to understand afterwards. It would go to extreme length to cut a variable name a few characters to make it more readable. Thanks, I hate it now... I guess comprehension is subjective, but as a junior, choosing long and very clear variable names were helping me a lot. To him, it was a distraction.
And also, never learn X because Y... I'll never understand the concept behind telling someone to never learn something. There are always different perspectives, concepts, paradigms to be learned. It might click for someone in a different language or framework, so I've always got a bit sad when I was told never to learn something...
I like to say we write code for the future reader (could be you, could be him, could be someone else). We should judge readability based on the future reader and not the person reading it today.
Using a shorter name might be more readable today, but completely unreadable in the future.
Company has been rebuilding one of the core features - rendering statistical data in a grid. It had to render lots of different datasets dynamically with 10s of thousands of rows per page.
Frontend team at that time was struggling with the implementation and that's where the suggestion came from.
Reality being that different managers wanted their departments being feature owners and make changes themselves using tools they know. Basically SQL Server and T-SQL became a hammer and every feature or an issue started looking as a nail.
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've met a lot of people who are convinced security through obscurity is a good thing. IMHO, it's a huge waste of time, and sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
Totally agree. It's like draping a curtain in front of a combination lock that has its code written on a sticky note, and hoping no one will look behind the curtain.
Bram Borggreve - Developer, Author, Mentor and Teacher.
Founder Code Your Future Colombia π¨π΄ - I β€οΈ my girl, Open Source Software and education!
En Modo DifΓcil! πͺ
While it might work for some people, I'm a big fan of learning 'on the job'. In my experience, a lot of starting developers (including me from the past) get stuck in an endless cycle of just learning, and never bring it in practice.
I'd say "Learn the theory WHILE diving in deep." In my experience, that's the only thing that works; theory without practice is noise, practice without theory is useless.
Bram Borggreve - Developer, Author, Mentor and Teacher.
Founder Code Your Future Colombia π¨π΄ - I β€οΈ my girl, Open Source Software and education!
En Modo DifΓcil! πͺ
"Stop writing and giving speeches, that doesn't suit a cybersecurity person. Oh and you should also forget about open source, that's just a phase". In a job interview. π€‘
I sort of got this too. Something along the lines like "You need to get really stuck, sometimes for weeks, it's part of the procces". I partly believe it, and somtimes getting a bit stuck will make you search elsewere and that does the trick. But I know that for me personally, that is not how I like to learn. It demotivates me and I check out. It also made me not dare to ask that person a question again, even when I really needed help. I am more about getting a teammate and figuring it out together. I know this because I had 10+ years experience in other fields, (also one in teaching/ learning).
For people that are just starting out.. advice like this can be just frustrating. That is to me why this comunity is so amazing! <3
Oh, I know that feeling quite well. And I think that as grow professionally one of the most useful things I've learned to do is to ask for help. It doesn't even need to be someone who will know the answer, just somebody who wants to go through my train of thoughts with me and help me find any issue. Or maybe someone that I know will completely change my approach. That's also one of the reasons why I enjoy Dev. I find so many different voices, with so many different experience levels, approaches and experiences that it is enriching and I learn a lot :)
Unfortunately, that teacher meant something different. He didn't want to teach me to overcome the frustration of not succeeding. The exact part is probably lost on my translation from Spanish into English... but what he wanted was that I accepted unfair things as something unavoidable and unfixable and that those things are a core part of what being an engineer is.
So, not something on the lines of "don't be frustrated when you're stuck. Don't despair and you'll find a solution eventually" and more on the lines of "yeah, you'll have to do overtime every day, have abusive bosses, and renounce to your professional ethics. That's how life is, get over it"
Oh wow, that is even worse.. He said that is is okay if you are beeing treated unfairly?!
I mean, I do believe that maybe in the beginning of your career you should work hard, and show what you are worth. Ofcourse overtime sometimes.. sure. But you have to take care of yourself.. The balence in work and fun should be good. And also, work should be fun :)
I think teachers sometimes forget the influence they can have on a student.
And also the aother way around also that students sometimes forget that teachers are also just people.. Don't buy everything they say.
βIf you drop out of college your life is over.β
This was told in 2016, and I am still doing fine and managed to build a few dependable friends online and a good client base to support myself, it does get lonely sometimes but freedom of not being burdened by robotic work/or bad management is far better in my opinion, and I am free to learn whatever heck I want and build uses cases to pitch to clients so it's an overall plus in my book.
Windows Mobile will completely take over the mobile market. Don't waste your time on Android/iOS. A CS professor told me that, about a year before they officially shut it down.
"Don't aim as high as you're doing, your perspective is too idealistic"
When I stopped with my internship (social anxiety related issues that I wasn't able to properly deal with back then) and in turn dropped out of college because without an internship I couldn't finish college...
Not so much as advice, but basically to trust your instincts more.
Every time I challenged my instincts, I lost badly.
My first job was a gut feeling - I've been there 5.5 years, and managed to become a team lead.
Second job - Offices were crap, people were condescending, but I needed a job quickly since I just moved to a new place. Total failure (Cost - 1.5 years of my life)
Third job - Money and clean offices were blinding me, the job itself was bad and people were crappy (3 years of my life, because it was super convenient and close to my home)
Fourth job - Got it in a blink of an eye since I just wanted to leave the previous job - was terrible(!!) (1 year and I ran out of there)
Fifth job - Took my time taking this one, money was as good as 4th job, but closer home and technology-wise seemed nicer (2 years, ended in a dispute with my manager)
Sixth job - HEAVEN! It's not as close to home as previous companies, but man oh man I enjoy every second of it, people are great, pay is great, technology is awesome but most of all - I feel 100% respected, which for me now with all my years of experience I think is the most important thing. (1.5 year and it seems like it's been only a day)
So my advice to you is:
Paycheques make you happy 1-2 times a month, but respect, interest and fun makes the job 100% of the time enjoyable. GO WITH YOUR GUT!
This came from a pretty unfriendly person on Reddit after I went to /r/learnprogramming seeking advice on how I could make an efficient path for myself and land a job without any college. I was 25 at the time, had a 1 year old, and I was working full time at Walmart. I had started a semester of college, but it just proved to be a waste of money because I didn't really have the time to balance a full load of classes while also working and taking care of my daughter, nor did I have the patience to spend the next several years in college because I'd only be able to take a few classes at a time.
I was told that I wouldn't make it without the degree and to just accept that I'd made the choice to have kids and I should instead just focus on maybe moving up at Walmart and abandoning the idea of being a developer.
Turns out that's not true at all, and within 6 months of that conversation, I had gone from basic HTML knowledge, to landing my first dev job and doubling my salary. Less than a year after that, I had tripled my original salary after making another switch to a higher paying front end job.
I couldn't be happier, and I'm still working just as hard as I did back then to grow as a developer. (:
Mexican software artisan. Eternal apprentice of web technologies. Insatiable learner. Father of 3 gorgeous little people. Beatle fan.
Host: http://mytypeof.dev/
#ActuallyAutistic web dev. Does front of the front-end. Loves perf and minimalism. Prefers HTML, CSS, Web Standards over JS, UX over DX. Hates div disease.
This came from a consultant at a time I had been working as a professional for about a year. I wasn't yet familiar with the term, but I was very confused during his explanation because the code he wrote as an example was awful from performance perspective, but he kept on going that this is the way things should be done. I had no trouble understanding the code but he treated me like I knew nothing simply because I wasn't familiar with the term "functional programming".
To clarify the advice itself isn't worst as there is a place for functional programming style, but the way it was represented was. This was kind of my first real life contact with hype programmers who use whatever is the coolest latest thing and use it blindly as their hammer for everything. They did whatever they thought was best, for example we had requested a Node app in JavaScript, we got a Node app in CoffeeScript.
"Use TypeScript, it makes JavaScript object oriented and you can check types."
...paging Kyle Simpson, HALP!!!
I was there for the "object oriented JavaScript" craze of the early-mid '10s, and all the predictable, totally avoidable errors caused by treating JS like [insert class-based OOP language you're comfortable with]. Now, we're just teaching junior devs to treat JS like a class-based language from the get-go (not to mention piling a ton of extra learning curve on their plates). That's gonna be fun to untangle.
The worst advice I've ever received is why become something that there are so many others BE SOMETHING UNIQUE.. i feel that if you keep having this attitude you will end up in a life long search doing nothing.
Most of my programming course in college were done in VB.NET. Other than reading vendor documents that assume you are using a .NET language, don't think I have used it since college.
Before I plunged into the world of software engineering / development
I worked as a snack seller.
I decided to tell my manager that I was leaving because I wanted to study.
My boss said to me:
"You are too stupid to study."
C# and Rust are funny and cool. Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. Indie game developer with a focus on RPG's because life sucks and I want a better one.
Preact - Next.js - Deno - SSR - SSG π»
Open source π
Machine learning π€
Books π
Sport πββοΈ
Nature π±
Focus on being useful. I contribute AMAP to the OSS community. Love learning by doing.
Learn a single programming language and you can survive in tech field.
I don't think its right, one should not depend on a programming language and rather learn software engineering.
Data-scientist who loves to use #datascienceforgood, especially in ecology, energy and the environment. Bonsai, gardening, bikes and music when I'm not at a keyboard.
Bram Borggreve - Developer, Author, Mentor and Teacher.
Founder Code Your Future Colombia π¨π΄ - I β€οΈ my girl, Open Source Software and education!
En Modo DifΓcil! πͺ
One time when I was a newer developer someone straight up told me I was stupid for learning Ruby on Rails instead of ColdFusion. I found it weird to call any path stupid, but I especially found it odd because Rails just seemed like it wasn't going anywhere and at the time I'd never even heard of ColdFusion.
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
Learn Flash, it's the future!
Learn Silverlight, it's the future.
βsaid no one ever, except the Microsoft sales team.
:)
The Future cost me $800 and 3 years of work.
Fun fact: I found out from an Adobe insider that they'd officially decided to discontinue Flash in 2012. Adobe sold me a license in 2013. That's what we call "a scam", boys and girls.
I had one flash class in college and I struggled so hard with it! I am glad that it died.
In fact I think it was not so bad π ActionScript was a pretty good language and the Flash IDE was a good tool for quick animations. It just shouldn't have tried to take the place of HTML imho π
I have to agree, Flash as a concept was good, and ActionScript was solid, but the implementation was a complete β but avoidable β shambles.
Just imagine how heavy built in flash components were. I worked with a guy and we rewrote the library. Made it extremely light weight and scalable.
That's what puzzled me β Flash used vector graphics, so it should have been ultra lightweight, but for the most part the heft of each file was ridiculous.
A lot of it was boilerplate, bitmap skins, additional libraries, etc. When I tore into the inner workings, only certain core libraries were actually needed to render something by the flash player. Oh the days of OO AS3 π€Έ. We basically used vectors drawn with code.
I won a global bronze Lester Wunderman award for a Flash based microsite which advertised the Ford C-Max car.
Hey now! Talented thespian Brendan Fraser's website runs on Flash... and you're telling me that it's a thing of the past?!
I did flash. Would you believe it's still in use by many gambling tech companies who having switched over?
Around 2010, when I was in high school, my best friend tried to get me to learn flash and make games in it. Even gave me some pirated tutorials. XD
PHP is dead
Yeah, any advice I've gotten with regards to a technology being dead has always proven pretty useless :P
I was surprised to find out a few months ago just how alive the PHP ecosystem is. Lots of good work being done to bring modern development and deployment paradigms to the language.
π―
The worst advice I ever received (in programming, at least) was something to the effect of "leave programming to the educated professionals; stop invading/infecting our world". It was 20 years ago when I went to a forum asking for help on something basic, yes, I was clearly a novice, and I expressed that my only interest was as a hobbyist to give them an idea of how to help me and he commenced to go on a page long rant about all the "idiots" wasting valuable data storage space and bandwidth (these were bigger issues back then). This is why I always pre apologize for wasting forum posts (if it seems like something I should know already) on the rare occasion I do need help anymore. Old habit, hard to break. The pretentiousness of experienced programmers was far worse than it is today (though we still have the Stack Overflow :().
If I had taken his advice and given up I never would have built all the utilities on my machines and on the net that make my "hobbyist" life happy. I'm addicted to anything programmatic/problem solving. Just comes naturally and makes me feel amazing. Truly helps me with lots of issues, not just in computing.
Some people spend way too much time interfacing with a computer that they forget how to interface with other humans lol
I've had countless experiences like this throughout the years with these types and lots of them are frustrated they spend all the money on an education and expect everyone else to have to do the same.
I love helping people and do it regardless if I get anything out of it or not and I pay the help I've received forward any time I can.
Hahaha! It's funny because I find it to be true nowadays! We need HumanDebugInterface HDI for them to do a life-boot rescue π.
Although some of the devs get to be like that in my opinion, as they did a lot for something and should have an excuse SOMETIMES (hey we all get in bad mood and make misstakes), most of these behave as they are affraid that people who didn't waste their lifes reading all books ever written about it, are gonna take their jobs and the only thing they were good at will be taken away and they will be exposed that it's not so hard to do their job. I guess it's not only devs but a lot of things connected somehow to sinence or actual science. Take for instance doctors, if you eve think that there might be a different way to solve your health issues automatically tag on a forehead as conspiracy theorists. I had some bad cases with medical professionals were they made wrong calls because tests indicated something. It's like if people see them as other human beings who also makes mistakes world will end
I can agree, some people can be very toxic to a community as a whole, on the other hand its great that you didn't let it get to you and kept up what you want to do.
Who said that? Cause many "educated professionals" don't know much
At my college internship (c. 2010), one of the senior engineers (non-software) said my CS degree would be worthless because A.I. would be writing all code in a couple of years and to put all my money in gold.
That language matters in programming. Fun fact, it almost doesn't. unless it is a specific case, or a language isn't 100% able to take on the majority of a task, the language doesn't matter.
B-b-b-but C++ iS bEtTeR π‘π
"Good code doesn't need comments"
Tell me about it.
Good code shouldn't need a code to describe what it's doing, but it certainly benefits from intent-comments ("why").
Writing code is like making a joke. It's bad if you need to explain.
If a joke was used as the basis for entire industries, I'd sure as heck want a explanation.
That is good advice. I should be able to look at the function names and variables and get a good idea of what is happening without comments.
Wait, what? why is that bad advice? :)
The idea is to make verbose code, itβs the main difference I observe in programmers relative to their experience level.
Novices tend to make messy complex code riddled with or needing comments & experienced programmers make simple/short code that uses sane naming and formatting so comments become pointless.
Correct if Iβm wrong please, I feel like I would need that lesson. :D
Good names help make it easier to understand what the code is doing compared to using variables like
aandband method names likemy_func1but it doesn't explain things like "why you wrote the code", "how it's intended to be used", etc.Some devs might end up with this idea that as long as they write clean beautiful verbose code, comments won't be needed.
I've written a post about comments to clarify my position on comments.
I would have to disagree, intent and why' can be conveyed.
It requires extra thought tho, which is what the quote is trying to encourage.
It's not meant to be taken literally.
Take fx.
The intent is conveyed using verbs and subjects.
This communicates the message or intent shorter, usually meaning better.
The subjects i should know what is based on context and documentation.
The quote "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." - Someone
Fully encompasses the idea.
I'l flip through you article now, thank you for taking the time to write it. :)
// Edit, ps, worth noting, with types, the verbosity and intent here could be much improved.
Woah! One of the worse advices I have seen on this thread a nightmare even for junior devs/admins haha!
Could you explain a bit more your thought?
Build it and they will come
I can't even get my family to use stuff I've built unless it really truly absolutely solves their problem and it is blatantly obvious without explanation.
We can turn that into a great advice for founders and developers who want to bring a product to market:
I have to admit that I should think of that more often myself, too π
Same here. It really puts things into perspective for me π
One guy I use to work with constantly told me to choose shorter variables names, even if it was clear there were harder to understand afterwards. It would go to extreme length to cut a variable name a few characters to make it more readable. Thanks, I hate it now... I guess comprehension is subjective, but as a junior, choosing long and very clear variable names were helping me a lot. To him, it was a distraction.
And also, never learn X because Y... I'll never understand the concept behind telling someone to never learn something. There are always different perspectives, concepts, paradigms to be learned. It might click for someone in a different language or framework, so I've always got a bit sad when I was told never to learn something...
I like to say we write code for the future reader (could be you, could be him, could be someone else). We should judge readability based on the future reader and not the person reading it today.
Using a shorter name might be more readable today, but completely unreadable in the future.
Do not learn C++ in school .. because is old and nobody uses it.
Years after, my first job was a corporate, full-time C++ job for 5yrs.
C++ is my first language, I think C++ should be mandatory in school (that teaches tech) as it is a gateway to any programming language you want.
Fully agree with you!
Anything that mentions just doing something.
"Just get hired at a startup. You'll learn so much!"
"Just apply anyway!"
"Oh that's easy! You just...."
The 4-letter-word word that makes my blood boil
Marcus Blankenship γ» Feb 9 '17 γ» 3 min read
Yes, a mentor once suggested that I completely remove this word from my vocabulary! (I try, but sometimes it slips)
I've been trying to reduce my use of that word as much as possible over the last year+. It really is a verbal crutch.
Not sure if it counts, but one of my ex managers suggested writing JS, CSS and HTML using SQL Stored Procedures to serve web pages.
Obviously we told this is a terrible idea and this monstrosity never saw a daylight.
Can you tell me more about the context, like what language, framework, infrastructure, and business objectives led to this kind of thought process?
It was Microsoft stack. SQL Server, .NET.
Company has been rebuilding one of the core features - rendering statistical data in a grid. It had to render lots of different datasets dynamically with 10s of thousands of rows per page.
Frontend team at that time was struggling with the implementation and that's where the suggestion came from.
Reality being that different managers wanted their departments being feature owners and make changes themselves using tools they know. Basically SQL Server and T-SQL became a hammer and every feature or an issue started looking as a nail.
"You'll never land a coding job if you don't master React" π
You can't be a professional programmer without a degree
My updated LinkedIn Education and Certifications sections:
dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/...
Two of the worst and most subtly degrading things anyone has ever offered as "advice".
OH! I forgot...
Where $XX/hr is a perfectly reasonable starting rate based on the local market. π
Stop writing code and do some real work
I've met a lot of people who are convinced security through obscurity is a good thing. IMHO, it's a huge waste of time, and sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
Totally agree. It's like draping a curtain in front of a combination lock that has its code written on a sticky note, and hoping no one will look behind the curtain.
Can't agree more!
Tutorials give you the information for you to know the syntax. Stackoverflow everything else.
"Learn the theory before diving in deep".
While it might work for some people, I'm a big fan of learning 'on the job'. In my experience, a lot of starting developers (including me from the past) get stuck in an endless cycle of just learning, and never bring it in practice.
I'd say "Learn the theory WHILE diving in deep." In my experience, that's the only thing that works; theory without practice is noise, practice without theory is useless.
Very well put. There is a sweet spot in the middle for and that spot is different for most of us.
Give up, it's just too hard.
"Stop writing and giving speeches, that doesn't suit a cybersecurity person. Oh and you should also forget about open source, that's just a phase". In a job interview. π€‘
From a teacher I had on my second year at university:
I sort of got this too. Something along the lines like "You need to get really stuck, sometimes for weeks, it's part of the procces". I partly believe it, and somtimes getting a bit stuck will make you search elsewere and that does the trick. But I know that for me personally, that is not how I like to learn. It demotivates me and I check out. It also made me not dare to ask that person a question again, even when I really needed help. I am more about getting a teammate and figuring it out together. I know this because I had 10+ years experience in other fields, (also one in teaching/ learning).
For people that are just starting out.. advice like this can be just frustrating. That is to me why this comunity is so amazing! <3
Oh, I know that feeling quite well. And I think that as grow professionally one of the most useful things I've learned to do is to ask for help. It doesn't even need to be someone who will know the answer, just somebody who wants to go through my train of thoughts with me and help me find any issue. Or maybe someone that I know will completely change my approach. That's also one of the reasons why I enjoy
Dev. I find so many different voices, with so many different experience levels, approaches and experiences that it is enriching and I learn a lot :)Unfortunately, that teacher meant something different. He didn't want to teach me to overcome the frustration of not succeeding. The exact part is probably lost on my translation from Spanish into English... but what he wanted was that I accepted unfair things as something unavoidable and unfixable and that those things are a core part of what being an engineer is.
So, not something on the lines of "don't be frustrated when you're stuck. Don't despair and you'll find a solution eventually" and more on the lines of "yeah, you'll have to do overtime every day, have abusive bosses, and renounce to your professional ethics. That's how life is, get over it"
Oh wow, that is even worse.. He said that is is okay if you are beeing treated unfairly?!
I mean, I do believe that maybe in the beginning of your career you should work hard, and show what you are worth. Ofcourse overtime sometimes.. sure. But you have to take care of yourself.. The balence in work and fun should be good. And also, work should be fun :)
I think teachers sometimes forget the influence they can have on a student.
And also the aother way around also that students sometimes forget that teachers are also just people.. Don't buy everything they say.
Damn! He/She must have had "tough life".
I guess so... luckily for me his words had a huge impact on me... exactly in the opposite direction he wanted xD
^_^
"Learn how to shutdown the PC properly" from a computer store. (yeah its true) i was like... "sorry what...?"
Worst advise for me was quote;
βIf you drop out of college your life is over.β
This was told in 2016, and I am still doing fine and managed to build a few dependable friends online and a good client base to support myself, it does get lonely sometimes but freedom of not being burdened by robotic work/or bad management is far better in my opinion, and I am free to learn whatever heck I want and build uses cases to pitch to clients so it's an overall plus in my book.
Windows Mobile will completely take over the mobile market. Don't waste your time on Android/iOS. A CS professor told me that, about a year before they officially shut it down.
"Don't aim as high as you're doing, your perspective is too idealistic"
When I stopped with my internship (social anxiety related issues that I wasn't able to properly deal with back then) and in turn dropped out of college because without an internship I couldn't finish college...
Not so much as advice, but basically to trust your instincts more.
Every time I challenged my instincts, I lost badly.
My first job was a gut feeling - I've been there 5.5 years, and managed to become a team lead.
Second job - Offices were crap, people were condescending, but I needed a job quickly since I just moved to a new place. Total failure (Cost - 1.5 years of my life)
Third job - Money and clean offices were blinding me, the job itself was bad and people were crappy (3 years of my life, because it was super convenient and close to my home)
Fourth job - Got it in a blink of an eye since I just wanted to leave the previous job - was terrible(!!) (1 year and I ran out of there)
Fifth job - Took my time taking this one, money was as good as 4th job, but closer home and technology-wise seemed nicer (2 years, ended in a dispute with my manager)
Sixth job - HEAVEN! It's not as close to home as previous companies, but man oh man I enjoy every second of it, people are great, pay is great, technology is awesome but most of all - I feel 100% respected, which for me now with all my years of experience I think is the most important thing. (1.5 year and it seems like it's been only a day)
So my advice to you is:
Paycheques make you happy 1-2 times a month, but respect, interest and fun makes the job 100% of the time enjoyable. GO WITH YOUR GUT!
Write unit tests is a waste of time
This came from a pretty unfriendly person on Reddit after I went to /r/learnprogramming seeking advice on how I could make an efficient path for myself and land a job without any college. I was 25 at the time, had a 1 year old, and I was working full time at Walmart. I had started a semester of college, but it just proved to be a waste of money because I didn't really have the time to balance a full load of classes while also working and taking care of my daughter, nor did I have the patience to spend the next several years in college because I'd only be able to take a few classes at a time.
I was told that I wouldn't make it without the degree and to just accept that I'd made the choice to have kids and I should instead just focus on maybe moving up at Walmart and abandoning the idea of being a developer.
Turns out that's not true at all, and within 6 months of that conversation, I had gone from basic HTML knowledge, to landing my first dev job and doubling my salary. Less than a year after that, I had tripled my original salary after making another switch to a higher paying front end job.
I couldn't be happier, and I'm still working just as hard as I did back then to grow as a developer. (:
"Learn a real programming language."
Some years ago I had just told them I worked as a front end dev.
Hard work always pays off in IT and programming!
Trust your colleagues!
You don't have to reinvent the wheel!
Never use icon fonts, nobody like them and e-readers getting hurt!
You don't need to plan ahead just do it as fast as possible!
You don't need contract for this small project!
"Use functional programming to do it."
This came from a consultant at a time I had been working as a professional for about a year. I wasn't yet familiar with the term, but I was very confused during his explanation because the code he wrote as an example was awful from performance perspective, but he kept on going that this is the way things should be done. I had no trouble understanding the code but he treated me like I knew nothing simply because I wasn't familiar with the term "functional programming".
To clarify the advice itself isn't worst as there is a place for functional programming style, but the way it was represented was. This was kind of my first real life contact with hype programmers who use whatever is the coolest latest thing and use it blindly as their hammer for everything. They did whatever they thought was best, for example we had requested a Node app in JavaScript, we got a Node app in CoffeeScript.
Mine had to be the advice for looking for a bug by a tech lead. Down into the rabbit hole I went.
This was direction on the basis that another developer couldn't have made a mistake. Which they had and admitted a week later.
Why can't people be more fourth coming. In short the Dev who introduced the bug was the Dev who fixed it.
"You don't need to know how it works...be happy that it works"
oehf..
Javascript has no potential.
Mastery is definitely something that comes from experience. That kind of advise sounds like it could come from someone who likes shortcuts.
"Use TypeScript, it makes JavaScript object oriented and you can check types."
...paging Kyle Simpson, HALP!!!
I was there for the "object oriented JavaScript" craze of the early-mid '10s, and all the predictable, totally avoidable errors caused by treating JS like [insert class-based OOP language you're comfortable with]. Now, we're just teaching junior devs to treat JS like a class-based language from the get-go (not to mention piling a ton of extra learning curve on their plates). That's gonna be fun to untangle.
Won't be installing random apps again based on a single referral.
The worst advice I've ever received is why become something that there are so many others BE SOMETHING UNIQUE.. i feel that if you keep having this attitude you will end up in a life long search doing nothing.
Learn ASP.net
Most of my programming course in college were done in VB.NET. Other than reading vendor documents that assume you are using a .NET language, don't think I have used it since college.
Before I plunged into the world of software engineering / development
I worked as a snack seller.
I decided to tell my manager that I was leaving because I wanted to study.
My boss said to me:
"You are too stupid to study."
Please tell me more about your 'magic coders powder' ...
amazon.com/dp/B0829G3YYK/ref=cm_sw...
Get a "job"
~10 years ago I was working in a groupal project at class, and the teacher propose us to use Dropbox to work with the same repo...π€¦
ANYONE can learn to program.
I'm glad those days are over.
Stop trying to learn different languages and platforms, and specialize...
"A fast loading page doesn't matter."
Was told this by a Senior Dev at marketing agency that I worked at. It is only one of the biggest factors when it comes to user's experience.
So far I am good.
It is OOP, you don't need to understand the internals.
Anything stating XYZ is the future
Learn JQuery before JavaScript
Learn a single programming language and you can survive in tech field.
I don't think its right, one should not depend on a programming language and rather learn software engineering.
Don't trust the cloud.
Launch now and we'll write the automated tests later...that didn't go very well
I thoroughly recommend React
Mobile development and app stores are a fling π
Why do you want to go on a training course or leave for a meetup, just read a book.
"You can deploy anytime" - Friday 3pm.
Yep, I agree
You Cant Switch from DBA(ITIS) to IT( Development) at all.
Once you get landed on to ITIS at first job.
Code quality doesn't matter, as long as it works.
thanks!!
I think there is time for experimenting and time when quality matter. π
The code in this project, is not a reflection of what I do at work.
C is the best language there is.
(shots fired)
"Don't write emails to give information, write them to cover your own ass."
Unfortunately, it's actually a legit advice. But I find it profoundly wrong in its message.
Learn ColdFusion.
One time when I was a newer developer someone straight up told me I was stupid for learning Ruby on Rails instead of ColdFusion. I found it weird to call any path stupid, but I especially found it odd because Rails just seemed like it wasn't going anywhere and at the time I'd never even heard of ColdFusion.