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JC Smiley
JC Smiley

Posted on • Updated on

What are good developer habits?

  1. When watching a video or reading, I will summarize what I have learned with a hand written note and draw an example.

  2. Communication skills like public speaking (demos), writing (technical pitches or design documents), and group conversation etiquette (inclusive communication) are really important. For example, it doesn’t matter how good you are at coding if you interrupt people in meetings so they don’t want to work with you.

  3. Ask questions, research, and learn new things. This doesn't have to be entirely new things. You will improve productivity if you learn shortcuts and hotkeys for your tools. Read documentation for the things that you use.

  4. Use version control, write unit tests, and document your code so that the next person working on it doesn't have to guess.

  5. Build, rebuild, and break it. Don't be afraid to break something in a tutorial. Learning to fix things is important.

  6. Do a tracer bullet first, before you start with robust functionality. Make the smallest end-to-end, full stack "Hello World" that touches everything you plan to integrate. Make sure that it works. Then start building out your functionality.

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