This is a guest post from Lorna Mitchell. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Recently, I decided my seven-year-old niece was old enough for her first programmable device. She has done a little bit of Scratch with me, so I bought her a BBC micro:bit (a very simple programmable device, with a web editor and USB connection, … Continue reading The Code Will Never Judge You
This is a guest post from Jerome Hardaway. Enjoy. Dear new developer, So, you’re in the office, learning a million things a minute that you were never exposed to. Everyone around you seems super competent and you don’t want to take time away from them, but you have no idea what you’re doing. You feel … Continue reading You’re gonna be OK
This is a guest post from Mia de Búrca. Enjoy. Dear new developer, You’re probably going to want to quit. The very qualities that make writing software appealing can also make it frustrating beyond belief. You're headed down this path because you like to be challenged, to learn and grow. However, facing new harder problems … Continue reading You’re probably going to want to quit
This is a guest post from Tim Bourguignon. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a black chalk board in a dark room. The board carried remainders of countless creations. Diagrams that could pass as hieroglyphs for the non-educated eye. Or well crafted UML to the … Continue reading Make it work
Dear new developer, https://twitter.com/saronyitbarek/status/1255278961250185218 I thought this was a great tweet. It's worth clicking through and reading the responses. I wrote my own tweet in response, but thought I'd write about it a bit more here. First, it's worth acknowledging that the term "senior developer" means different things in different places and times. Certainly the … Continue reading When do you feel like you’re “senior”
Dear new developer, I hope you enjoyed reading these letters. I've certain enjoyed writing them. When I chat with new developers, at meetups, on slack, or via email, they let me know when letters are helpful or unclear. They suggest topics. They give me feedback, which, when you're writing into the howling abyss of the … Continue reading “Letters To a New Developer”, the book
This is a guest post from James Turnbull. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Steve Jobs made the phrase "Good artists copy, great artists steal" famous in the tech industry. However, there's considerable debate about the origin of the expression. Ironically, he was possibly cribbing from Picasso, who might have been cribbing from Igor Stravinsky, William Faulkner, … Continue reading Choose inspiration over imitation
Dear new developer, Feedback loops are so important. (If you're not sure what that is, I'd recommend "Thinking in Systems".) These loops help systems improve. If you don't have feedback, you'll improve more slowly, in my experience. Why? Because you won't know what you are doing that is good and what is garbage. It's really … Continue reading Seek feedback loops
Dear new developer, Take the time to write good commit messages. Such messages communicate intent across time, and live very close to the code. Here's an example of a bad commit message: Updated the code. There's no intent here. Yes, of course, you did update the code. Why? Inquiring minds want to know. updated the … Continue reading Write good commit messages
This is a guest post from Randall Kenna. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Two weeks after I graduated my coding bootcamp, I had an offer. Two weeks after that, I started my first engineering job at a small startup. Here are some of the strategies I used. Treat your job search like it’s your job. I … Continue reading How I Got a Job Two Weeks After My Coding Bootcamp
Letters To A New Developer 