What are the five (or more) things that a new developer should know and practice ?

Comments

[Brendan Cowley]

1. Courage
   Keep in mind that even seniors don't know stuff and have awful opinions, so don't be afraid to speak up. Your opinion is not invalid because of your tenure, and never let anybody tell you otherwise. You will soon discover that developers have a very linear problem solving method...

2. Persistence
   There is going to be a part of you that feels like an ignorant failure... And tell that part of you to shut up and keep going.

3. Be Greedy
   Don't let the time/energy vampires rule your day. Don't fall victim to the "spend every waking hour learning the new hotness because your coworkers are losers and have no personal lives" thing. Even if this is a passion, it shouldn't rule your life.

4. Self Awareness
   Be aware of what you're good at and what you're not. Be aware that even if you think that you'd like to do something you may actually suck at it. Be aware that regardless of your efforts you were still going to suck at certain things. Be aware that maximizing your strengths will pay iterations of dividends higher than trying to bring up your weaknesses to the same level.

5. Protect Sanity
   Life is too short to work for crappy people. Life is too short to work for idiots. Life is too short to work for a company that doesn't value your individual strengths and try to grow you personally and professionally. Life is too short to be subjected to pointless meetings to plan other meetings. You only get one go around on this earth, so why in the hell would you not be insanely picky with the companies that you trade your time and effort for money? Why would you not be insanely picky with the team that you interact with daily? Why would you not be insanely picky about the boss who has your professional future in their hands? Remember that this is an economic exchange, not slavery... So you need to be interviewing everybody from the rip and never stop until you depart that organization.

[taijidude]

Amen to that! ☺️

[Sahil Kashyap (He/Him)]

Tons of information, Much appreciated !🙌

[Andrew Baisden]

This!

[Randall]

1. Learn to read documentation
2. Learn to use the REPL (depending on the language)
3. Learn to use breakpoints and other debugger features
4. Learn to pay attention to details in code. Compilers do not forgive typos.
5. Learn how to ask good questions (show your code, explain what you want it to do, explain what it does instead, explain what you have tried).

[Brendan Cowley]

I realize that this is a blight in every industry, but there's just something about the self-righteous developer that just grinds my gears, especially when they are method driven instead of results driven.

[arif]

• You should love what you're doing.
• Burnouts are too normal. Need to learn how to beat it.
• Soft skills are crucial for being senior.
• Never give up learning.
• Be used to collaborating your colleagues.

[Sahil Kashyap (He/Him)]

👨‍💻🚀

[Simon Egersand 🎈]

Hi! I wrote a blog post about exactly this :) Curious what you think!

dev.to/simeg/5-good-habits-of-a-so...

[Andrew Baisden]

1. Communication
   Ask as many questions as possible be an information sponge and learn everything.

2. Proactive
   If you can't get answers then do your own research. You have to show that you can contribute to the team.

3. Positive
   It's normal to have days that get you down or to struggle on a task. It's important to keep going.

4. Friendly
   Building connections with your peers leads to a stronger team overall.

5. Skilled
   Work on your programming skills, learn about project architecture and best techniques. Show that you can learn and grow fast at the company.

[Sahil Kashyap (He/Him)]

Amazing !!

[Auroiah Morgan]

1. patience
2. Read ... do not skim.
3. Look that word up in the dictionary, it's ok.
4. you probably wont finish it, and it is ok. Just learn from it, study more and get further in the next run.
5. Practice, fail, practice , succeed, repeat

[Khryzen]

1. Learn to read the documentations properly
2. Don't get intimidated by long codes
3. Always practice your fundamentals over and over again
4. Don't be afraid to ask for help
5. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You are still learning!

[tq-bit]

• Write code that's readable by people (approx = Clean Code)
• Remember your roots and how you started off = be fair with your peers
• When in doubt: Procastrination > precastrination
• Embrace mistakes and try not to repeat them
• I like Brendan's 'Energy Vampire' idea (do I spot a What we do in the shadow's fan?). Pretty much that. Focus on yourself first.

[taijidude]

• Unittests
• Deployment Automation
• Writing Documentation
• Asking questions
• Clean Code