This is a guest post from Jen Weber. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Welcome! I’m so glad you are here. We need your help to build accessible apps, inclusive engineering teams, and incredible products. What I want you to know today is that it is normal to ask many, many questions. There is so much that … Continue reading You will ask many, many questions
Dear new developer, I heard this phrase on a podcast from a reporter and it struck home. I don't know how old you are. I don't know if software development is your first career or your fifth. I don't know if you have a family. But, I do know that work can be mighty fulfilling. … Continue reading “Work will never love you back”
This is a guest post from Charity Majors. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Story time. Susan was hired as a database engineer. Her primary projects, which are supposed to be upgrading/rolling out a major point release and running load tests against various config options and developing a schema management tool, keep slipping. But she is one … Continue reading Know your “One Job” and do it first
Dear new developer, Go out and speak at a meetup. This will have the following benefits: Decrease your fear of public speakingIncrease your knowledge of a topicHelp build a community of developersBuild your public profileTeach others something useful You don't have to do this every quarter or every year, but I challenge you to do … Continue reading Speak at a meetup
This is a guest post from Joyce Park. Enjoy. To my newer colleagues: Welcome! I’m so excited to have you in the dev community, and honored to hopefully be able to contribute by sharing a few time-tested hints about entrepreneurship and early-stage startups. I’m a community-taught web developer who has enjoyed 22 years in high-profile … Continue reading How to prepare to be a startup founder
Dear new developer, Caching is a common architectural pattern that helps with performance and scalability. Spending some time learning about this will help you build better systems and understand existing architectures. What is a Cache? At the most fundamental level, a cache is a secondary store of a set of values which pulls values from … Continue reading Learn caching
This is a guest post from Sonja Parsell. Enjoy. Dear Developer, Don't misinterpret a small distraction, or even a big disaster, as a "sign" that coding isn't for you. There were definitely times in my journey when a break in learning was completely justified, but by no means should I have seen it as a … Continue reading But First, Don’t Do the Dishes
Dear new developer, Kindness is an unsung virtue for software development. I touched on it in this post on empathy, but wanted to emphasize it again. Practice kindness. When I was young, I thought scoring points and being right were important. They are, but being kind and a good human is even more important. Be … Continue reading Be kind
This is a guest post from Dan Walkes. Enjoy. Dear developer, I was thinking this week about my Great Uncle, Bob Van Gerpen, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2011. Bob was my Grandma’s youngest brother and similar in age to my Dad. He was a big part of my parent’s life as they experienced … Continue reading Uncle Bob’s Ski School
Dear new developer, I had a friend who brought me into a club. The specifics of the club don't matter, but like most clubs, it had a variety of executive roles. Someone had to run the meeting, other people had to take notes, someone needed to keep track of the finances. As I took on … Continue reading Always be replacing yourself
Letters To A New Developer 