I spent five years in college learning to code.
A stupid dissertation delayed my graduation. But that's another story.
Most of my five-year program didn't prepare me for real-world coding. My real coding journey began at my first job, with one Google search: "how to get good at coding."
I found a lot of conflicting advice:
- "Use comments"
- "Don't use comments"
- "Do this"
- "Don't do that"
Arrggg!
It took years of trial and error to learn what worked.
I had to survive on-call shifts, talk to stakeholders, and say "no" politely. More importantly, I had to learn that coding takes more than just syntax.
That's why I wrote Street-Smart Coding: 30 Ways to Get Better at Coding Without Losing Your Mind, so you don't have to go down the same rabbit hole.
I wrote it for every developer who's ever typed "how to get better at coding" into Google or ChatGPT, just like me back in my first job.
Inside "Street-Smart Coding"
Some lessons inside Street-Smart Coding are conventional.
Others were learned the hard way.
And a few are weird.
One of the tips will save you from staying at work until 3:00 a.m. That's on Chapter #21.
Another tip is to watch a TV show. And no, it's not Mr. Robot or Silicon Valley. That's on Chapter #29. It will teach you about problem-solving.
But all the tips and lessons are battle-tested.
These are the lessons I wish I had starting out, the lessons I learned over ten years through plenty of mistakes. Now they're yours.
Top comments (2)
Is this language agnostic?
Yes, it's language agnostic. For some of the examples, I use pseudocode C#-like, but you don't need to know C# to read it.