Websites vs Products
The difference between a proper application/software/product and a website has been blurred over the years.
Most websites have no product to offer, they’re simple websites that run on CRUD operations behind the scene.
For example a personal blog with contact us page and some articles.
Then there’s actual products, these are complex applications solving a specific problem.
Adobe.com is a website.
Adobe Cloud Creative’s Photoshop is a product.
I think if anyone wants to level up their coding they should work on products and not simple sites.
Fallback stack is what gives confidence
If you’re an expert working with a single stack you’ll automatically have confidence when you mess around with other stuff.
Knowing you would be able to do a task in X language would automatically give you confidence to do it in a language completely new to you.
So it doesn’t necessarily come down to learning all different stacks, knowing one is often enough!
Arrogance & delusion from short projects
I see this happening again and again but it’s most common in web dev field than any other. It’s the people with false sense of confidence because they’ve managed wrap up 5 projects in a week.
Real confidence comes from large size projects that you spend years building, maintaining, fixing bugs, discovering edge cases, reviewing code etc..
A one week project never gives you a chance to go through all this, they start with same pattern and finish soon after.
I think people should give themselves a chance to work on long term projects if they want real confidence. Basically you got to go through hell to gain something.
No knowledge is waste
I’ve worked with many junior and interns and among them the best devs are ones who are transitioning from other fields..
They could be very good at fixing Boilers or fixing laptops or mobile, or be a good architect for example. Literally anything.
I’m not 100% sure how this helps but anyone who has been good at anything will find it easier to transition to web dev/engineering vs someone who’s been an expert at nothing.
Clean code is subjective
Sometimes code seems like a mess but make perfect sense to someone with domain knowledge.. code that you think is “clean” because you’re used to working with it may not be as clean to an outsider.
Sometimes a function that takes 3 parameters may make more sense than a function that takes one.
Sometimes an array is better than an object for data storage.
Sometimes a variable called x is better than aVariableThatIsSoLongThatItConfusesYou.
Sometimes having a function is better than a class.
Sometimes if/else makes more than just if.
Sometimes initiating object inside a class is better than injecting it.
Sometimes it makes no sense at all to create an interface.
And I can go on and on..
Understanding data pays off
I see so many people underestimating the knowledge from outside ‘dev work’.
For instance understanding of data itself, knowing how to use Excel, basic statistics and just general sense of how to work with datasets.
I feel like most people can create amazing sites until they have to deal with a system that involves large amount of complex data. Suddenly it’s not just about programming.. the data must go through some phases before it can be be consume, transformed, stored or cleaned up by your application.
Protip. Learn excel 🙂
My somewhat random take on “No comments” code.
“No comments” codebases might be clean but aren’t fit for purpose.
I am all for good, clean and testable code.
I’m also for writing code that can be maintained and makes sense to others. But there’s instances where no matter how clean I code, the code itself just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
This is because there’s some wisdom/insight baked into a function or snippet of code. I know what it is, maybe it’s been noted on Jira one out of ten times, but usually it stays with the person who’s written it.
If someone else puts their hands on that piece of code and decides to make a “simple” change the entire app could burn down, simply because they don’t have access to the insight and they’re confidence that they’re doing the right thing.
This is why making comments throughout your code makes sense.
A good function name or overall context in which it’s written can only do so much sometimes.
I’ll be adding more to that list when I get a moment!
A coding hack: Making sh*t up to avoid distracting yourself!
..is to purposefully write WRONG syntax.
Say if I’m working with a language called ABC and I want to search an array.
But I don’t know name of the function, what parameters it’ll take or in what order!
In addition to that, I just cannot afford to distract myself.
Opening a new tab and searching is enough to lose my train of thought.
To avoid this I came up with this trick:
Makeup a random function/syntax that doesn’t.
Yes, I literally make it up.
I might do:
if(searchMyArray(data, search_for)) {
// Do this..
}
// carry on working..
Later when I know I have got my important logic written, I go on find the correct methods!
Couple more things I’ll be expanding on soon..