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Gracie Gregory (she/her) for The DEV Team

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Top 5 DEV Comments from the Past Week

This is a weekly roundup of awesome DEV comments that you may have missed. You are welcome and encouraged to boost posts and comments yourself using the #bestofdev tag.


@jennrmillerdev has some sound advice for those of you that frequently need to describe what your job as a developer entails. The tip to avoid sharing ANYTHING that might position you as a printer expert is so apt

yeah, interesting. When I don't want to continue the conversation, I usually say something like "I build websites" and end with that. Even my least tech savvy relatives have used websites before.

For my more technically inclined relatives, I go a bit deeper and try to give a relevant example like "...when you deposit a check, I run some validations to make sure the check is valid, make sure this matches that, and issue a transaction to another system that does additional processing"....that's usually enough.

I always, always always, stay away from answers that might make me sound like some expert in setting up smart TVs, fixing printers, setting up a home wifi network, or being a zoom call expert etc. lol

@khangnd keeps it real in the "What are your hobbies other than programming?" thread

Other than programming, I enjoy coding...

I could have really used a person like your physics teacher in my life during high school, @jonrandy

This reminds me of some of the best learning advice I ever received. It came from my A-Level Physics teacher:

"Revision is for wimps"

He meant essentially that any amount of last minute cramming, or just trying to stuff your head with information that you didn't fully take the time to really understand - is completely futile.

Learn by doing - it's the key to understanding

This is such a prevalent issue @matthijsewoud! Thanks for sharing this addition to the "How YOU Can Make Your Workplace Friendlier for Women" post thread

This is a really good piece that I think hits all the nails on all of the heads.

I'd like to add a small something that really irks me that many folks do in documentation: referring to programmers as male per default.
It's better to use he/her, but I think the easiest thing is to not use gender at all and use they/them. Just saying "A developer can do an API request by doing X, then they can do Y" is a good thing; it's readable, inclusive and makes more sense than using 'he (or she)'.

I love this advice, @egilhuber. Definitely one of the few contexts where "stealing" is advisable 😆

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See you next week for more great comments ✌

Top comments (3)

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graciegregory profile image
Gracie Gregory (she/her)
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erica (she/her)

Super excited to be featured! :D

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Khang

Oh lol, this is so unexpected. But thank you 😊