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0 pointsalias_neo7y ago0 comments

My advice would be; don't do it, unless it's a way of life.

Being a software developer is easy, I've seen loads of them, these are the people who's work I end up fixing, it stresses me out and it costs the company more because they've paid two people to do the job.

Being a good software developer is a way of life; if you're going home after work and looking at ways to improve your life or other peoples lives by writing software, you're doing it right.

Work with the best people you can find, the more experience these people have than you, the better. Learn what you can, and make it your aim to be the best, one day they'll come and ask you for help. This is the point where you thank them.

Find something you're good at, find a niche language in your company or tool set and become the go-to developer for it. As soon as you attain that, and you're known as the go-to, find something else, work on the new thing, and maintain the old, find languages you enjoy and master them.

Eventually, you get to a point where you're asked to fix/write code in a language you've never used, and yet, with the API docs at hand, you don't even skip a beat.

Also, remember this, no matter what you think, not everyone is far better than you at this. There are some exceptional developers, but most are either putting in a lot of hard work for the results you see, or they're average.

Finally; Never release on a Friday, and never make changes to production.

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ck4257y ago

Disregard that first piece of advice. You'll hear a lot of bullshit about how only people who love programming and want to spend all their free time building things should be software engineers. Ignore them, ignore the imposter syndrome and make sure you have a life outside of work - preferable doing something that isn't just more programming. It'll make you a more rounded individual and in the long run a better developer.

alias_neoOP7y ago

I'm not suggesting someone spend all of their time writing code outside of work, I certainly don't, so please don't label what I'm saying as such, or as "bullshit". Yes employers pull that crap, and want you to sell your soul, that's not what I'm suggesting.

I don't think programming is something you become good at simply by doing your 9-5. I've worked with a lot of 9-5'ers and they're rarely the best or most rewarded developers.

What I'm certainly NOT saying is that you should work _all_ hours, in fact I will say exactly the opposite, don't, but, do be willing (if you're able) to finish solving a problem before you call it a day. For your sake, not for your employer's sake. I prefer to finish my work day on the last "problem solved". It leaves you in a much better position to leave your work at work, than when you have a problem you didn't solve and which will bug you until you solve it. If you find a problem is going to take more than "minutes" to solve, accept that its a problem for another day and try to leave it at that.

To further elaborate on my first statement, so it isn't misinterpreted again;

Do it because you enjoy it, and you _want_ to do more of it outside of work; even if you don't do, but, even IF you don't, you can visit conferences, meetups, hack-spaces, various other <insert-tech-or-language>-con, you'll meet cool people, learn about things you didn't know and perhaps teach other something. If you can make it "a way of life", contrary to ck425, do spend _some_ of your free time working on programming tasks, find something different from your work, for example, contribute some time to an OSS project you like (for e.g. I use and like to contribute to Home Assistant) or some other project you enjoy using, where you'll interact with the skilled people behind those projects.

To be clear, that I'm not disagreeing with ck425, just that he (and probably others) might misinterpret what I'm saying as "you should spend all your time programming or else you'll suck": Do all of this, only after you done the other things you enjoy doing more.

ck4257y ago

I still disagree with you. The idea that you should only become a software engineer if you want to continue it outside of working hours is one of the reasons our industry is primarily made up of white (or Asian) middle class men. It's perfectly ok to do this as a job, a really good job, a career, but still a just job that you don't pursue out of work. When we discourage people who don't want to code in their spare time we discourage valuable alternative view points and create a horrible homogenous industry (despite our industry effecting just about everyone these days). Many people don't have either the time, resources or inclination to pursue more coding out of work. And sure, the techy who does loads of side projects will be a better coder, but there's a hell of a lot more to this job than coding and it's perfectly possibly to be a good engineer while only doing it 40 hours a week. We need to expel this attitude so we can create a diverse workforce, which is proven to be more efficient.

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sanitycheck7y ago

I don't disagree with most of what you say, however: If you have a (code) problem at the end of the day it's often best to just stop - maybe even finish early. When you sit down in the morning more often than not it'll seem much easier to fix, your subconscious will have been working on it overnight.

That's better than sitting there for another hour or two in the evening getting increasingly tired and ineffective, missing dinner, annoying your partner, etc.

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0 pointsalias_neo7y ago0 comments

My advice would be; don't do it, unless it's a way of life.

Being a good software developer is a way of life; if you're going home after work and looking at ways to improve your life or other peoples lives by writing software, you're doing it right.

Eventually, you get to a point where you're asked to fix/write code in a language you've never used, and yet, with the API docs at hand, you don't even skip a beat.

Finally; Never release on a Friday, and never make changes to production.

0 comments

ck4257y ago

alias_neoOP7y ago

I don't think programming is something you become good at simply by doing your 9-5. I've worked with a lot of 9-5'ers and they're rarely the best or most rewarded developers.

To further elaborate on my first statement, so it isn't misinterpreted again;

ck4257y ago

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sanitycheck7y ago

That's better than sitting there for another hour or two in the evening getting increasingly tired and ineffective, missing dinner, annoying your partner, etc.

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