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10 tips from A 10 years experienced Developer

Programmer Things on August 07, 2020

Whats app everybody!!!!!!!!!! Sorry I was a little too excited, What's up everybody. How's everyone doing? I am fine too. OMG, thanks for asking ...
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Matthieu Cneude

These are timeless advice. I love that. I'm a 10 years developer as well (20 years coding as a hobby), and I agree with everything.

But, as you said, it's not because I have 10 years of experience that I know what I'm talking about :D

I specifically agree with this: Don't follow the hype.

I think it's really true. My take on that: if developers focus on the fundamentals, they won't have to follow the hype. It will be easy for them to adapt to new technologies if they need to, because everything is built on these fundamentals.

Let's take programming languages: they look all very different, but if you look closer, mostly the syntax change. The big ideas are the same, and if we know these principles, it's way easier to adapt.

It's a bit a shameful plug, but I'm trying to write a blog about that, if somebody is interested: the timeless fundamentals and tools we should focus on.

Thanks for that!

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Programmer Things

Loved the post on The Art Of Learning For Software Developers ❤.. Awesome work keep it up 🚀

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David Cantrell

Can I add two incredibly cynical things to the list?

First, never use version X.0 of anything. Let the early adopters find the egregious bugs.

Second, if some tool suddenly becomes wildly popular don't look at it immediately. Make a note in your diary two years down the line to have a look at it. Separating hype from quality takes time and, just like with version X.0, your time is better spent letting other people do that for you.

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Andrei Dascalu

"Separating hype from quality takes time" - yeah, but at the same time if you do go by the quality of experience and learning, there's no harm in being part of the process that separates hype from quality. If all you care about is the grind of delivering someone else's ideas, sure ... you can get by on letting others be at the forefront of a new technology.

It's a risk, sure, to get involved with something that burns out as a hype but if you're a technologist then even that has a positive spin since if you do it often enough, you already have what it takes to not be tied down on a particular 'thing'.

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David Cantrell

I'd rather spend my time creating my own overhyped nonsense instead of figuring out what other overhyped nonsense is any good.

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Andrei Dascalu

Definitely this is by far the best generally valid advice, everyone should create their own overhyped tech nonsense, disregard what anyone else is doing unless someone else validates it first and happily live in their own bubble which they rule. If presidents can do it, so can everyone else.

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Valentin Radu

You forgot /s

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Andrei Dascalu

Yeah, I hate it when that happens ;)

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Daniel Ziltener

Addendum to your "Second": if some tool becomes wildly popular suddenly, it's usually shit. (This reinforces the "make a note to look at it two years down the line").

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Valentin Radu • Edited

This is great advice, for a stable-job kind of person (i.e. looking for a good work-life balance). If you're hired, preferably in an already established company, then follow this advice and you'll stay away from trouble forever <3.

But life is dull with no trouble at all! You'll end up writing monolithic backends using Perl in 2020 😅. Not that there's something wrong with Perl per se, but we have better options for that today.

Also, when trying to bring something new to the market, or if you're really into continuous learning, using new techs can help your company/personal brand.

You'll be among the first to have know-how in a hopefully rising tech. As the hype grows, you'll have a very good position to negotiate from.
Of course, using x.0 (or betas/alphas) most of the times means actively participating to the product/library. This means effort, but also good opportunities to learn stuff.

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Programmer Things

Great advice, thankyou 🤗

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John Wright • Edited

Agree except I check back for a few months not years. Taking risks on new things is fine though. Otherwise we wouldn’t have iPhone with new parts etc but things do need vetting

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David Cantrell

The iPhone is a great example of not looking at anything hyped for two years. It took two years to become suitable for anyone except Apple fanboys. Version 1 had basically no internet - it couldn't do 3G - you couldn't copy n paste, you couldn't even add third party software. Version 2 was pitifully slow. Version 3, the 3GS, was the first really usable product. It came out ten days short of the second anniversary.

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eonuk

A somewhat cynical tip, but beware of managers. There are great one and there are awful ones. There are some that will burn you. There are some that will de-skill you. At the end of the day, your career is important; more so that the company you work for.

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Andreas Møller

Your code would be much more readable with a switch statement

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Programmer Things • Edited

thanks man

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Andreas Møller

Perfect! LGTM.

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bravemaster619 • Edited

Seriously, how do we check if the given number is odd or even? I don't think the approach in OP is well-designed.

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Programmer Things • Edited

If you're genuinely asking for the solution then below is a simple implementation

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bravemaster619

Wow, thanks for the nice solution!

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Visakh Vijayan

Ha ha ... Nice article.

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terpinmd

Can you please share some experiences about how lack of diversity negatively impacted a project? That will really help drive the point home i think.