Over the course of my software career I’ve worked hard to make myself a better developer. These 7 tips have helped me along my way. What tips would you offer aspiring software developers?
1. Read. Read. Read. Books are a great resource for gaining new knowledge, enhancing existing knowledge, and forcing yourself to grow into new areas. Although I’ve been lazy with my reading lately I think the books that I’ve read over the course of my career have greatly enhanced my ability to grow professionally.
2. Write lots of code. If you want to get better at something you need to practice. This applies to coding just as much as it does to anything else. As you work through problems you’ll learn new ways of doing things, realize how stupid you were in the past, and you’ll begin to see common problems and scenarios. Get coding!
3. If someone asks you a question that you don’t know the answer to find the answer. I’ve always made it a habit to find the answer to questions that colleagues have asked. If someone is asking you for the answer and you don’t know it there’s a decent chance it is worth knowing. Do a quick google search, or send yourself an email reminder to find the answer. Not only will your colleague appreciate you finding out the answer for them but you’ll also have gained some new knowledge that you won’t have to go searching for next time around.
4. Blog it up. Reading blogs as well as writing blogs can be very helpful to your career. By reading blogs you’ll keep a good handle on what’s going on in the tech world and be able to identify areas that you may need to increase your knowledge and skills. By writing a blog you’ll open yourself up to new opportunities. Obviously you need to be able to make the commitment to writing solid content but if you can make the commitment do it.
5. Remember that your job is to make the users of your software kick ass. It’s not to write some really snazzy class that uses all the latest language features, its about creating kick ass software.
6. Learn something new. Learning is one of the most important aspects to becoming a solid software developer. There is way too much out there to know it all. Make it a habit of learning something new. Whether it’s a new class, a new framework, or a completely new language. Just remember to continuously learn.
7. Read code. One of the things that I enjoy is checking out other people’s code. By examining how someone else solved a problem you often times learn new ways of doing things. I’ve checked out a lot of code and learned a lot of things from it. When someone posts a code sample, or open sources a project they’ve been working on crack open the code and take a look, chances are you’ll learn something new.