Since there are dozens of posts on becoming a better developer, but no single post with all the advice you need, perhaps, you'll find this short guide useful.
1. Learn the Skills You Need
- Learn the programming basics
"The goal of this guide is to be the easiest and funnest way for a beginner to get started programming."
Read more: Learn To Program - Beginner's Guide
- Get a complete understanding of programming
"To be a good programmer is difficult and noble. The hardest part of making real a collective vision of a software project is dealing with one's coworkers and customers. Writing computer programs is important and takes great intelligence and skill.
But it is really child's play compared to everything else that a good programmer must do to make a software system that succeeds for both the customer and myriad colleagues for whom she is partially responsible."
Read more: How to be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary
- Remember these 9 principles to become a good developer:
- Attitude
- Read the books
- Code! Code! Code!
- Try out tools and utilities that make your work easier
- Try out new technologies
- Look how other guys develop systems
- Everything that shines is not gold
- Participate in communities
- Visit technology events
Read more: How to become a good developer? - Gunnar Peipman's ASP.NET blog
- Know what makes a great programmer:
- Being a great problem solver.
- Being driven and lazy at the same time.
- Ability to understand other people's code
- Having a passion for programming
- Loving learning for the sake of learning
- Being good at math
- Having good communications skills
- Strong debating skills
- Extreme optimism
- Extreme pessimism
Read more: The Top 10 Attributes of a Great Programmer
- Learn what really matters in programming
- Work with other OSes
- Research classes and internships more
- Consider taking the SCJA or SCJP exams
- Connect with more people
- People in the workplace seemed more easygoing than I would have thought and socialization (face-time) is an important part of working
- Company/workgroup attitude is the most important factor in how much I succeeded in my work.
- The best job is not usually the best-paying job
- Consider blogging and/or mentoring
Read much more here: What I wanted to know before I left college: A programmer reflects
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Use the advice from Paul Graham:
- To start with, read Appjet's guide to learning to program
- start thinking about specific programs you want to write
- don't start with a problem that's too big
- Initially your programs will be ugly
- you'll find it useful to look at programs other people have written. But you'll learn more from this once you've tried programming yourself.
- find friends who like to write programs
Also learn answers to these questions:
- Why do you advise plunging right into a programming project instead of carefully planning it first?
- Why do you keep going on about Lisp?
- Isn't object-oriented programming naturally suited to some problems?
Read more: Programming FAQ
- Remember the 11 object-oriented programming principles:
- Open closed principle
- Liskov substitution principle
- Common reuse principle>
- Interface segregation principle
- Stable dependancy principle
- Acyclic dependencies principle
- Common closure principle
- Stable abstraction principle
- Release-reuse equivalency principle
- Dependency inversion principle
- Single responsibility principle
Learn more: 10 Object Oriented Design Principles | Livrona
- Learn programming by not programming
"The older I get, the more I believe that the only way to become a better programmer is by not programming. You have to come up for air, put down the compiler for a moment, and take stock of what you're really doing. Code is important, but it's a small part of the overall process."
"To truly become a better programmer, you have to to cultivate passion for everything else that goes on around the programming."
"The nature of these jobs is not just closing your door and doing coding, and it's easy to get that fact out. The greatest missing skill is somebody who's both good at understanding the engineering and who has good relationships with the hard-core engineers, and bridges that to working with the customers and the marketing and things like that."
Read more: How To Become a Better Programmer by Not Programming
- Learn C/C++ no matter what your main language is
"If you want to be a top-notch programmer, you can no more afford to ignore the C and C++ languages than a civil engineer can afford to ignore the difference between a plumb line and a snap line, a right angle and an oblique one."
Read more: Learning To Drive a Stick Shift - Coding the Wheel
- Try Python to learn to code at a higher level
"Learning Python taught me the value of programming at a higher level. Things like using boost::signals to break up dependencies; boost::bind and boost::function to use functions as first-class objects; boost::foreach to separate iteration from the algorithm; boost::any for generic data types; and much more."
Read more: How learning Python made me a better C++ programmer | The GITS Blog
- If 11 object oriented design principles weren't enough, remember the 10 proverbs every developer should know:
- There's no smoke without fire.
- An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
- Don't put all your eggs in one basket
- As you sow, so shall you reap
- Great haste makes great waste
- Look before you leap
- When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail
- Silence is construed as approval
- A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
- With great power comes great responsibility
Read more: 10 Programming Proverbs Every Developer Should Know
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Master the use of routines to:
- reduce complexity
- avoid duplicate code
- reduce the effect of changes
- hide sequences
- improve performance
- hide data structure
- hide global data
- promote code reuse
- plan for a family of programs
- improve readability
- improve portability
- isolat the use of nonstandard language functions
- isolate complex operations
"Aside from the invention of the computer, the routine is arguably the single greatest invention in computer science. It makes programs easier to read and understand. It makes them smaller (imagine how much larger your code would be if you had to repeat the code for every call to a routine instead of invoking the routine). And it makes them faster (imagine how hard it would be to make performance improvements in similar code used in a dozen places rather than making all the performance improvements in one routine). In large part, routines are what make modern programming possible."
Read more: Why You Should Use Routines, Routinely.
"Good programmers -- regardless of whatever language they happen to be working in -- understand the importance of crafting each routine with the utmost care. The routines in your code should be treated like tiny, highly polished diamonds, each one more exquisitely polished and finely cut than the last."
Read more: The Greatest Invention in Computer Science.
- Learn to estimate software projects precisely
"We tend to look at software estimates as successive hundred yard dashes instead of a long distance race. It allows a client to pick out just what they want built, while using their line item veto on tasks they don't want to do. But this assumes that you can break a software system down into features that have no interactions. A series of silos, though, isn't an accurate description of software. There's interactions between features, and rarely do you see estimates take that into account."
- Learn to see, when you are overengineering things
"The problem with patterns, best practices and idioms is the overuse of a single principle. Regardless what you are considering: overuse of DRY can lead to "fat" layers and classes, overuse of Separation Of Concerns to many fine grained units, overuse of modularization to jar, plugin or just governance hell. Common sense and the balance between concepts and idioms are the solution- but it's hard to find in real world :-)."
Read more: Adam Bien's Weblog : Weblog
- Test your app performance in conditions, similar to the live environment
"Your application is useful and popular. Your users love it. Your users love you. But over the next week, something curious happens. As people use the application, it gets progressively slower and slower. Soon, the complaints start filtering in. Within a few weeks, the app is well-neigh unusable due to all the insufferable delays it subjects users to-- and your users turn on you."
Read more at Everything Is Fast For Small n.
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Find out the signs you are a bad programmer, symptoms and remedies to them:
- Inability to reason about code
- Poor understanding of the language's programming model
- Deficient research skills / Chronically poor knowledge of the platform's features
- Inability to comprehend pointers
- Difficulty seeing through recursion
Also the article covers signs that you are a mediocre programmer and that you shouldn't be a programmer.
Read more: Signs that you are a bad programmer (Bad Programmers)
- Choose your platform wisely.
"When we build our applications, we have to decide what foundation (or platform) to use, and those decisions are not at all simple. In fact, these technology choices can be so difficult that you don't have to be "foolish" to earn bad results. Many a wise man has watched his software product floating away in the floodwaters after a big rain."
Read more: Be Careful where you Build
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Learn a framework, because
There are several reasons to work with a framework for a business:
- better application security
- improved time to market
- easier to find someone, who knows the framework
There are 3 reasons why developers benefit from frameworks, too:
- community support
- frameworks give you tools to do more work and earn more money
- it is easier to get a job, if you know any framework
Read more: should you learn a framework? Yes!
- There isn't one language that can solve all problems
"Just because it's cleaner to do something in Perl does not mean that it's right. Nor does it mean the solution we had was "bad"."
Read more: Being a Better Programmer #2: Don't Be a Missionary | Javalobby
- Be a good architect
Read more: 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know - The Book [97 Things]
- Remember the 21 laws of programming
"As any experienced computer programmer knows, there are unwritten laws that govern software development. However there are no penalties for breaking these laws; rather, there is often a reward."
Read more: 21 Laws of Computer Programming
- Create well thought out software:
- Make It Multiuser
- Make It Modular
- Create A Related Firefox Extension
- Add Config Options For Performance
- Make It Cross-Platform
- Improve The Loading Time
"You may be thinking in starting programming something, for work, for your studies or as a hobby. You may also have a software project that is quite successful, but need to go beyond.
This list will help you to reach what you need."
Read more to learn how: 50 Ways To Improve Your Software Project
- Try developing open source applications
Read more:
- Listen to the smart people
"Huge collection of Computer Science Video Lectures from Universities like ADUNI ,MIT, Washington, Berkeley, IIT, etc"
Read more: LinkMingle.com > 30+ List of Computer Science Video Lectures (Over 200 Videos)
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Search code on the Web to get more programming knowledge.
"we use search we should make effort to expand all types of knowledge instead of just solving particular problems. It will pay off with enhancing ability to solve much more advanced problems and becoming even more effective programmer."
Read more: Software Creation Mystery > How to use search skills to become an effective programmer
- Follow these 10 commandments of developing user-friendly software:
- Allow immediate termination
- Leave start-up alone
- Not modify existing file associations
- Not ask inappropriate question
- Keep noise to a minimum
- Stay focused on the goal
- Make actions obvious and reversible
- Avoid restarts
- Make configurations count
- Adhere to the platform
Read more: Ten commandments for developers > DamienG
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Know the concepts that every software engineer should know, such as:
- Interfaces
- Conventions and Templates
- Layering
- Algorithmic Complexity
- Hashing
- Caching
- Concurrency
- Cloud Computing
- Security
- Relational Databases
Read more: Top 10 Concepts That Every Software Engineer Should Know
- Learn to be open
"I am a great believer in not 're-inventing the wheel' and now encourage in others to get out of the habit of thinking 'I can make a better what-ever-it-is".
Read more: How to be a better programmer - What is this Tech?
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Use the seven practices for healthier, faster software development:
- Improve business processes before starting development
- Create a solid software development team
- Improve processes for service requests
- Minimize reporting of software metrics
- Improve communication with the business team
- Use the right programming language
- Use the right IDE
Read more: Seven practices for healthier, faster software development
- Learn about modelling.
"Modeling is frequently used in certain software development domains to help verify the design of software, both formally and informally, before implementation starts.
One of the reasons that this approach hasn't caught on in the programming community at large is that it slows down development and increases the overall cost significantly. You have to maintain separate artifacts that contain largely the same information: the source code and the model. Finally models are often ignored after implementation starts.
This is well-known in the modelling community as the Achilles heal of modeling. Nonetheless modeling is still important enough for creating correct and robust software that it is widely used in many software projects where robustness is important."
Read more: The Future of Programming includes Modeling
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Learn to ask why
If a non-developer gives you a technical task for you to programm, ask "Why?". It might happen that the result that the client/manager wants to get can be achieved with much less effort.
Trying to understand how things work and asking people for more information definitely helps, too. (Thanks to Wade Wilson via DZone for the tip.)
- Check out a guide to become a better developer from Rob:
- Make Fans
- Know Your Core Competencies
- Enjoy the Panorama
- Know What You're Building
- Don't Use a Dull Knife
- The Jigsaw Puzzle
"The more you know about your co-workers, the more you'll understand the puzzle. The more you understand the puzzle, the more indispensable you become."
- Know Your Archetype
- How to Criticize a Software Developer Without Getting Punched
- What Do Your Colleagues Think of You?
- Get a Massage (and Get Your Boss to Pay For it)
- Listen to a podcast to hear a discussion around a question "What are you doing for the next 6 months to be a better developer?"
"Justice Gray and Bill Simser asked folks 'What are you doing for the next 6 months to be a better developer?' In this episode, Scott and Carl kick the question around."
Read more: Hanselminutes Podcast 72 - Be a Better Developer in Six Months
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If you are a web developer, study these and other websites that every web developer should know by heart:
- UseIt Alertbox by Jacob Nielsen
- A List Apart
- "Getting Real" from 37Signals
- Web Design from Scratch
- ReadWriteWeb
- Meyer Web
Read more:
- Read more on becoming a better programmer:
- Great Hackers
- All I Need To Know To Be A Better Programmer I Learned In Kindergarten
- Amazon.com: The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master: Andrew Hunt, David Thomas: Books
- flipcode - Being A Better Programmer
- Becoming A Real Programmer (thinking about thinking...)
- Three Steps To Becoming a Better Programmer <>
Thanks to: Particletree > Becoming a Better Programmer
- Learn from the masters
- Critique your work
- Learn some useful computer science
- Do summer internships if you can
- Program for 10 years
"Generally, that's how long it takes to become an "expert" at any complex task (but only if you are effectively making an effort to improve)"
- Make sure you truly understand OOP.
- Spend a little extra time to write small apps that are outside of your experience
- Try building some apps with a rich front end (AJAX, Flex, whatever), if most of what you do is writing CRUD web apps
- Consider moving business logic out of stored procedures and into application code that wraps the database and is exposed as web services, if you spend a lot of time working close to the database layer
- Try different approaches to the same problem and look for commonalities and differences.
- Read lots of books.
- Using a framework doesn't mean you're going to understand how the code works under the hood
- Keep up on the industry news and understand how it relates to your short and long-term job prospects.
- There aren't really a whole lot of "easy ways" to be come a better developer
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Code as if comments don't exist
"While comments are neither inherently good or bad, they are frequently used as a crutch. You should always write your code as if comments didn't exist. This forces you to write your code in the simplest, plainest, most self-documenting way you can humanly come up with."
"When you've rewritten, refactored, and rearchitected your code a dozen times to make it easy for your fellow developers to read and understand -- when you can't possibly imagine any conceivable way your code could be changed to become more straightforward and obvious -- then, and only then, should you feel compelled to add a comment explaining what your code does."
Read more:
- Coding Horror: Coding Without Comments
- Don't Comment Your Code (an example of understandable code)
- Remember the rules of good commenting:
- The value of a comment is directly proportional to the distance between the comment and the code.
- Comments with complex formatting cannot be trusted.
- Don't include redundant information in the comments.
- The best kind of comments are the ones you don't need.
"The only "comments" guaranteed to be accurate 100% of the time-- and even that is debatable-- is the body of the code itself. Endeavor to write self-documenting code whenever possible."
Read more: Coding Horror: When Good Comments Go Bad
- Cope with the excuses to document everything:
- The code is not readable without comments
- We want to keep track of who changed what and when it was changed
- I wanted to keep a commented-out section of code there in case I need it again
- The code too complex to understand without comments
- Markers to easily find sections of code
- Natural language is easier to read than code
Learn how to cope with the excuses: Common Excuses Used To Comment Code and What To Do About Them
- Don't use "don't comment" posts as an excuse not to comment. Only when you write clean, understandable code.
Read more:
- Include business logic in your comments
"I often find that code I'm maintaining is missing comments regarding the business logic. Rather than "Why is the code designed like this?", something like "Why is the business process designed like this?"
This becomes most useful when you look at unfamiliar code (your own, probably) and decide that the easily-digestible code is nevertheless doing something you are sure is silly, and you change it. Big mistake."
Read more: Code commenting? Try Business Commenting.
- Write really great code by following these principles:
- Consistency
- Indenting
- Comments
- Write descriptive variable names
- Minimize horizontal scrolling
- Follow the gnu convention of doing one thing and doing it right
Read more: 6 tips to make your fellow coders love you
- Write good code for it to be testable.
"..somehow you look at your code and you say, "I understand how to write tests for your code, but my code is different
". Well your code is different because you violated one or more of the following things." - Mixing object graph construction with application logic
- Ask for things, Don't look for things (aka Dependency Injection / Law of Demeter)
- Doing work in constructor
- Global State
- Singletons (global state in sheep's clothing)
- Static methods: (or living in a procedural world)
- Favor composition over inheritance
- Favor polymorphism over conditionals
- Mixing Service Objects with Value Objects
- Mixing of Concerns
Learn more: Top 10 things which make your code hard to test | Misko Hevery
- Remember these 5 rules of variable naming:
- Make your variable names long and descriptive
- Put units in your variable names
- If you are using Camel Case, don't capitalise commonly hyphened, or combined words
- Never, ever use the variable name temp
- int i is perfectly valid in a small loop
Learn more: 5 rules of variable naming.
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Document your code really, *really* well, because
- Employees leave and you need to document well, because
- You protect yourself against workers leaving with legacy application knowledge
- You shorten the ramp-up time of the new employees that take over the application
- You automatically create a lasting knowledge base for any problems that might arise in the future
- People might actually use it
- It also shows your dedication and attitude on software development
Read more and learn what makes good documentation: Why you really, *really* should document your code properly, inside and out
- Employees leave and you need to document well, because
- Know why, how, what, where and when to comment
Read more: Build good geek karma: Start commenting your code...
- Develop productively:
- Limit News Intake to twice a day, Including Google Reader & News Sites
- Leave Yourself a Place to Start (or: Leave work with something small broken)
- Draw it Out & Research First
- Architect Your Perfect Distraction-Eliminating Work Environment
- Eliminate IM during productive hours
- Only Respond to Emergency Emails during productive hours
- Limit Meetings to once a week (or less)!
- Get out, and be social every 2 weeks
- Take evenings off most days
- Get 20 minutes of exercise in the morning, 3 times a week - but use that time!
- Make/Use Better Tools
Read more: 10 Ways to Improve Your Programming Productivity - Articles - Matthew Moore
- Get even more productive:
- Minimize distractions
- Maximize working time
- Encourage physical and mental health
- Stop hammering nails with a screwdriver
- Stick to programming
- Get clear project specs
- Make sure the environment is safe and comfortable
- Pay attention to your attitude
- Don't overlook mentors, training, and education
- Code reviews
Read more: 10 ways to increase the productivity of your programmers | 10 Things | TechRepublic.com
- Read "The Productive Programmer" book
"What it will help you with is building the kind of foundational skills and ways of thinking that make it easier to learn about the new and flashy things because you're not wasting time in other areas."
Read more: The Productive Programmer | Book Zone, discuss at the "Productive Programmer" wiki.
- Have someone and something to rely on
- Start a code library and find a fast way to access it
- Get good and know the language
- Find someone that knows more about programming than you and find someone that knows less
- Find a few easy to understand and easy to navigate sites for syntax reference
"Starting programming or simply refining your work flow can be a daunting task. Everyone has their set way of working and it’s the way that works best for them. This is a list of suggestions that can help coders of all levels and languages."
Read more: Beginning Programming Productivity Tips
- Get more efficient in your work:
- Get ergonomic
- Take it easy on your eyes
- Get good peripherals
- Get good hardware
- Dual screens
- Organize your screen and your desk
- Get focused
- Use the best tools
- Customize your tools
- Source control
- Easy access to information
Read more: 11 Tips to make you more efficient
- Stay healthy at work:
- Setup your work environment to be ergonomic
- Try using an ergonomic mouse and keyboard
- Remember to look up from your monitor
- Sit up and stop slouching
- Keep yourself hydrated
- Take regular rest breaks
- Look after yourself before it is too late
"It may seem hard to believe that working at your desk can cause you long term harm, but unfortunately the real toll of sitting in the same location and doing the same operations over and over again may not be felt until it is too late."
Read more: 7 Ways to be a healthier programmer
- Master your soft skills to be a better person:
- Humanity
- Temperament
- Speech
"I have found that programmers who are willing to crack this social code with their soft skills, are often the very same geeks who end up in leadership positions, or who start their own company. I can say without question that it is not my ability to decipher collaborative filtering algorithms that has brought me the most success, but it is the soft skills that continue to generate interest with employers. This was a difficult realization, but one that I have come to accept and embrace."
Read more: d'bug > Blog Archive > Soft skills for the programmer
- Be creative:
- Learn a new language
- Start from the ground up
- Question everything
- Do it for fun
- Never stop testing ideas
- Find a passion
- Master your tools
- Start making abstract associations
- Think of structure as a tool, not a limitation
- Don't rule anything out until you try it
- Always look for a simpler and more elegant solution
- Don't be afraid to build off the code of others
- Don't be afraid to collaborate
- From the very basic, create the beautiful
Read more on what others learn from creative programmers: Creative Code: 14 Ways to Learn From Creative Programmers
- Create a list of things you need to do
"This software developer does not have a detailed list of all the things he needs to do. Which means, despite adamantly claiming that he is 99 percent done -- he has no idea how long development will take! There's simply no factual basis for any of his schedule claims."
Read more: Coding Horror: On Our Project, We're Always 90% Done
- Save your time
"Over the past couple of weeks I have been trying to find out what the main principles of time management are in the case of agile software development. I was able to distinguish 10 principles so far, and I will present them here for your convenience."
- Learn the essential life skills to stay afloat:
- How to handle your finances
- How to cook
- How to interact with people
- How to take care of yourself
- How to take care of your stuff
- How to have fun
Read more: Programming Skills vs Life Skills.
- Motivate yourself
"You might have all the time in the world to work on your game and you just don't feel motivated enough to work. When that happens, you might need some tools to be productive."
Read more: 14 Ways to Motivate Yourself
- Get more active to stay motivated:
- Find/rediscover your passion
- Remove distractions
- Listen to podcasts and read blogs
- Blog yourself
- Learn a new technology every month
- Get involved in an open source project
- Seek out local groups around your programming language of interest
Read more: Becoming a Better Developer
- Not only be smart, but be willing to learn to become a good developer.
"The huge demand for developers, coupled with the relative youth of our industry, has created hordes of developers who simply don't understand what they are doing. They do not understand how computers work, or how a compiler works. They use dictionaries and stacks all the time, but they don't understand that these are classic data structures, and not something that Microsoft just made up. And the problem isn't that they don't know these things, it is that they don't want to know these things."
Read more: Being Smart Does Not a Good Developer Make
- Get a great, comfortable chair.
"In fact, after browsing chairs for the last few years of my career, I've come to one conclusion: you can't expect to get a decent chair for less than $500. If you are spending less than that on seating -- unless you are getting the deal of the century on dot-bomb bankruptcy auctions -- you're probably making a mistake."
"Choice of seating is as fundamental and constant as it gets in a programming career otherwise marked by relentless change. They are long term investments. Why not take the same care and consideration in selecting a chair as you would with the other strategic directions that you'll carry with you for the rest of your career? Skimping yourself on a chair just doesn't make sense. "
Read more:
- Address negative attitudes in your team
"To Mr./Ms. Pessimism new ideas and new thinking are "yet another thing I have to learn", rather than a chance to improve one's self and challenge one's own assumptions. If left unchecked, such negative attitudes can result in the team member sticking their head in the sand in hopes they can avoid learning anything at all."
Read more: Negative Attitudes are a Cancer to Successful Teams
- Learn to identify and work with great clients
- All cards are played face up
- Mutual accountability
- Willing to share whatever is necessary to get the job done
- Constantly probing to find the best solution
- Time is no barrier
- Eager to learn...and to teach
- An 'always on' response mechanism
- Keep up the pace
- Express thanks
- Accept value based pricing
"Great clients are worth their weight in gold and over the last few months I've been fortunate to work with a couple who are top drawer. Such clients bring interesting challenges to the table. Challenges that stretch the team yet produce a solid, satisfying result."
Read more:
- Scale your services and increase pricing
Scale your services to provide a better service to your clients, which they will appreciate. It'll come at a cost, but it's worth it.
"In the long run, what do great clients need? Do they need simple implementers that can get menial tasks done quickly and cheaply, or do they need long term, stable and reliable web development experts that can get the job, however great or small, done right the first time? Well, there are plenty of clients out there of either kind, but we aim to serve the latter group."
Read more: Accurately Scaling Services and Pricing
- See, where your project is starting to fail
When you start seeing these signs on the wall, take action.
- Learn to work with your boss
"Bosses: You can't live with them, and you can't live without them. Like it or not, most of us must deal with a boss, and the way we do so affects not just our career advancement and our salary, but also our mental well-being. Here are some tips on how to get along better with your boss."
Read more: 10 ways to work better with your boss | 10 Things | TechRepublic.com
- Break rules, such as these:
- Keep your eyes on your own work
- Do not discuss your work with others (or do so only at a high level)
- Do not copy other people's code
- First develop a prototype, then deliver a more polished product by the end of the year
- Ask your advisor or TA for help
- Learn a few tips to work well in corporations:
- Learn the mailto link syntax and use it
- Make sure you're using Web 1.0 before you even attempt Web 2.0
- Code to the requirements
- Development efforts should be like the Special Effects in a movie
Read more:
- Dress well to:
- get promoted
- be a good manager
- be confident
Learn how to dress up: Metrosexual Developers
- Do anything to enjoy your work
- Make sure you like doing your job
- Make sure you get satisfaction out of your job
- Choose between actual jobs, not companies
- If you like developing software, then keep working as a developer!
- Don’t put up with being a Code Monkey
- Learn from your co-workers
- Keep up with new technologies and ways of working
- Don’t focus on job security
- Don’t let money dominate your decisions
- Always make sure you can leave your job if you’re not happy there
"To me, one of the most important parts of a job is the fact that you should enjoy doing it. If you do the math, you’ll quickly realize that you’ll spend somewhere around half of your active adult life at your job, so you might as well try to make the most of it. If you’re unhappy or frustrated at your job, you’re essentially wasting a large part of your life so you’re better off trying to find something that you actually enjoy doing."
Read more: Career Advice For Young Developers
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Know available salary data, but don't worry about it.
Since you have your own unique set of abilities and skills and the company you want to work for has its situation, you'll be able to get a fairer salary, than, if you had one in mind.
Nick Corcodilos, the IT hiring expert and the owner of AskTheHeadHunter, advises IT jobseekers:
"You should never, ever, ever divulge your prior salary to any employer. Because as soon as you do, you destroy your ability to negotiate. It's the equivalent of inviting your prospective employer to judge you by the standards of your last job. Which is utterly insane."
Read more:
- Programming Salaries
- Software Developer Salaries
- The 2008 IT Salary Guide, November 2007
For example, a Senior Web Developer would get
- $76,250 - $108,250
- Add 10% for Java development skills, 10% for Java enterprise development skills, 5% for LAMP, 5% for AJAX development, etc.
- you'll get paid more in NY, Washington, Stamford, Boston and Chicago
- Software Developer Salaries: Ruby on Rails vs. Java
- A List Apart 2007 survey results, 2007
- Computerworld Canada's 2008 Salary Calculator, 2008
- Learn one or more of the most demanded IT skills to have more fun at work and earn more:
- Network administration, especially among IT firms and governmental institutions
- Windows administration
- Desktop support, starting from $46k
- Database management
- Wireless network management, to manage wi-fi, mostly
- Telecommunications support,
- Web development, design to address web-centric business strategies
- Business intelligence, a trend gaining steam at the moment
- Virtualization, one of the hottest IT trends, too
- .NET development
- CRM implementation
- Web application development
- Project management
- MS SQL server development
- SAP Skills
- Web 2.0 Application Development
Read more:
- IT Skills in Demand, (September, 2008)
- 10 in Demand IT Skills (March 2008)
- Learn about and become efficient with the current technologies:
- Multicore and hybrid processors
- Virtualisation and fabric computing
- Social networks and social software
- Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
- Web mashups
- User Interface
- Ubiquitous computing
- Contextual computing
- Augmented reality
- Semantics
Read more:
- Know the states to get tech jobs in, such as:
- California, naturally
- Florida
- North Carolina
- Maryland
- Pennsylvania
- Utah
- Virginia
Read more: The Best States For Tech Jobs--And The Worst - Forbes.com
- Know the cities that pay more for the IT jobs:
- Silicon Valley with $144k on average
- San Francisco and Oakland, California
- Austin, Texas
- Seattle
Read more: Technology: It's Where the Jobs Are (June 2008)
- Follow these simple tips from Lifehacker to get the job you want:
- Let RSS and email find the job for you
- Shoot for the right salary
- Rebuild your resume
- Ace the interview
- Restart a stalled search
Learn more: Lifehacker's Guide to Nabbing the Job You Want.
- Learn the truth about corporate software development
"It doesn't matter where you look, you'll get to know over time hundreds of people working as programmers for those corporations and it's very, very rare to encounter someone who really has a clue about what he's doing."
"Wouldn't it be great to employ the master/apprentice model known since the middle ages? Why do we allow inexperienced people to mess around with the most important thing in software, which is the code? I think a well motivated apprentice working alongside with a good master will evolve into a true master himself over the years."
Read more: What's wrong with software development in large corporations - Stephan Schwab
- Understand that you weren't supposed to have a boss
"Technology tends to separate normal from natural. Our bodies weren't designed to eat the foods that people in rich countries eat, or to get so little exercise. There may be a similar problem with the way we work: a normal job may be as bad for us intellectually as white flour or sugar is for us physically."
Bonus tips from the members of Digg
Perhaps, you'll find these gems of wisdom from the members of Digg helpful, too.
Read the tips from DonPMitchell in more detail.
Read the tips from fenris6644 in more detail.
2. Write Self-Descriptive Code, Useful Comments or None at All
There are as many opinions on writing code and commenting as there are developers. Learn their opinions and form your own.
3. Programm Efficiently
One thing is to know the functions or application structure, but there are things that can help you work more efficiently.
4. Be a Good Businessman
5. Get the Job You Deserve
Regardless of the state of the economy, companies still need developers. And a good developer is a developer with a job, no matter, if inhouse or freelance.
Here are some tips on how to get a good development job.
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