This is a new weekly roundup of top comments from around DEV. There are so many great conversations happening these days, we wanted one more way to find and enjoy comments from fellow community members. Let's jump into it:
In a discussion thread entitled Where are the old developers?, @jfrankcarr offers some wisdom and perspective:
I'm pushing 60 and still programming. Of course, no "cool" tech company will hire me once they deduce my age when they see me in person. So, I've been working in the corporate information systems world for the past 15 or so years, primarily writing in-house web and desktop applications for logistics, inventory control and manufacturing.
I probably could have moved into project management, IT management or the like years ago if I wanted to. That's where most other programmers I knew and worked with 20+ years ago have gone. But, I enjoy developing software so I've kept writing programs.
Short and sweet, but @tux0r captured a recurring theme from many answers asking answering the prompt Is coding easy?.
Comment Not Found
Should the Quality of GitHub Projects Be Evaluated by Their Star Count? @jerodsanto offers some practical tips and questions you should be asking yourself as you evaluate the quality of a project.
Don’t forget to read the code! 💯
There’s no better way to evaluate the quality of software than to inspect the actual software itself. With proprietary stuff this isn’t an option, but the beauty of open source is all the code is right there waiting for you to read it. 🙌
People often skip this (paramount) step because reading code can be difficult and time consuming. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself about a project, to get you started:
- Does it have tests?
- Can I run the test suite and they all pass?
- Are the classes, functions, and variables named well?
- Is there a logical flow of execution?
- Would I design a solution similar to this?
- Are there code comments? If so, are they useful?
The benefits of this process are immense:
- You’ll learn a lot of tricks and techniques
- You won’t be as intimidated to dive in and change or fix something if the need arise
- You’ll be much more confident that the dependency you’re adding to your software is high quality
As a wise Jedi once advised his Padewan:
Use the source, Luke
In a great article discussing the 10 things I've learned from working remotely, @ninoles shares four additional insights into the importance of good communication.
I have built my company for two years now, working entirely remotely (with about 20 remote devs today, most of them in Montreal area, with an office to share if necessary, but most of them are still working from home most days of the week).
I agree with all your points and would like to add some myself, about communication.
Communication is way more important when working remotely. Some think it will be an isolating experience, but, by my own experience, I found it is very easy to keep the line open with today's tools. However, I had to relearn it quite a bit:
You will be far more interrupt when working remotely instead of in an office. People will less hesitate to ask you a question or start a conversation because they will not know you were already engaged in other work or conversation. Which means:
Your exchanges will be terser, especially with people that supervise many others or are central to your organization. You have to imagine them surrounded by people like in a press conference and trying to answer everyone questions. Don't try to second-guess the intent based on what's NOT written. Ask for clarification when it's unclear. And, remember, you'll be this person too, so:
You really need to be more clear with your intentions. Even with emoji (or maybe even more?), intents doesn't travel that's well through chat and emails. Take the time to respond carefully, fully, and don't hesitate to request a video/audio call if necessary. Communication among people is still primarily an oral tradition, and body language is also an important part of it. And something I often forget:
Don't hesitate to schedule a meeting, even for 15 minutes. Create a chat room for it, if necessary. In an office, this corresponds to take a room to talk without both disturbing other, or being disturbed. Be sure that your online status says "In a meeting" during this time. This way, your conversation will be more productive and you'll keep the noise level at a minimum for everyone.
Well, that's my tips. No as well broad as yours but I hope that could help some people to join in the remote wagon. My quality of life has greatly improved since I did, and I'm pretty sure it is a step in the right direction to reduce the impact urbanization and promotes our more rural regions.
@dance2die rounds out the Top 5 this week with an explanation to this ELI5: Explain Empty Returns Like I'm Five.
You decided to go shopping for a gift(
doSomething).
As you arrived at a train station, you got a push notification that all trains are canceled due to hurricane (somethingElseHappens()).
So you returned home without any gifts (return).
Or else you could've waited for hours for a train that will never show up.
See you next week for five more great comments!
P.S.
- We'll have badges soon for everyone on this list and future lists.
- To embed a DEV comment, use the liquid tag
{% devcomment COMMENT_ID %} - If you find great stuff within DEV, we're supporting a new tag called #bestofdev. Everyone is welcome to post there if you see a great comment or just want to boost a great post.
Top comments (9)
Time for a game of Comment Golf!
@tux0r created a Top 5 DEV Comment using just 38 characters. Who can make it on next week's list using 37 characters or less?
🤔💪🙌
Congrats to @jfrankcarr , @tux0r , @jerodsanto , @ninoles and @dance2die for making the list.
I'd like to thank those who've enjoyed ❤ the comment 😘
& also those who've written good comments above me 😄
What a great idea!
Love the concept, Peter. The team just continues to impress me with the creativity. I feel like the community has gotten to a point where the base is built and accelerating (this could be totally wrong and you might be laughing at me), and it's creating the opportunity for like... 2nd Order Creativity on top of the site.
I definitely agree. I was so happy and excited when @isaacandsuch organically created the #graveyard tag and trend on the site. That sort of community creativity can only blossom when there's a solid foundation of activity and collective buy-in.
This is such a nice new roundup! You are all always finding ways to recognize the community you've built, love it.