Dear new developer, Writing great emails is a key skill. For all the hullabaloo about slack, emails still rule the roost when it comes to cross organization communication. This is because everyone has email, it is auditable and uneditable once sent, and requires no special permission beyond knowledge of an email address. Email is great … Continue reading Tips for using email well
Category: letters to a new developer
Develop Denver Presentation
Dear new developer, In a slight departure from the normal posting schedule, I wanted to announce that I'm speaking at Develop Denver on Friday, August 16. I'll be talking about three things that surprised me when I was a new developer. There are a number of other interesting presentations across a variety of topics. Here's … Continue reading Develop Denver Presentation
There are no adults in the room
Dear new developer, One of the most shocking things I learned when I started working in a professional capacity is that there are no adults in the room. That is not to denigrate everyone at your company, working hard to help make the place successful. Rather, it is to say that no one knows everything … Continue reading There are no adults in the room
Write a brag document
Dear new developer, You will encounter good managers and bad managers in your career. I've found that one common thread for all managers is that they are busy. Busy with meetings, busy with coordination with other teams or parts of the business, busy putting out fires, busy with helping team members. Busy busy busy. They … Continue reading Write a brag document
Subscribe to a weekly link newsletter
Dear new developer, I mentioned before the benefits of participating in an online community. If you aren't interested in a back and forth, you can often join an email list where someone will capture interesting articles on a particular subject and email you weekly. (Examples that I've recently interacted with: API links, dev links, craftcms … Continue reading Subscribe to a weekly link newsletter
Personal projects make you a better developer
Dear new developer, I firmly believe that having a side project makes you a better developer. This kinda sucks, because when I get home from a day struggling at the office, I don't want to sit in front of the computer for yet longer. But if you can make it happen, even if it is … Continue reading Personal projects make you a better developer
Learn a little jq, awk and sed
Dear new developer, You are probably going to be dealing with text files sometime during your development career. These could be plain text, csv, or json. They may have data you want to get out, or log files you want to examine. You may be transforming from one format to another. Now, if this is … Continue reading Learn a little jq, awk and sed
How to be a successful junior engineer
Dear new developer, I enjoyed this post from Hanah Yendler on how to succeed as a new developer. Note that she is working at Eventbrite, a larger company (1100 employees according to wikipedia), so some of the advice may be a better fit for new developers at bigger companies. A few of the pieces of … Continue reading How to be a successful junior engineer
Don’t Shit on Someone Else’s Work
Dear new developer, There will come a time when you are looking at a system and trying to understand the choices behind it. You may be looking at a particular class, a subsystem, or a more fundamental choice, like the language or the system architecture. And you'll wonder what the hell the initial implementer was … Continue reading Don’t Shit on Someone Else’s Work
Three Tips for New Developers
Dear new developer, I ran across this post with three tips for new developers. The tips were: Develop broad expertise Work in application support Hone your interpersonal skills This especially resonated with me. Note that the javascript frameworks indicate this article is a bit dated; I'd substitute React, Vue and Angular for jQuery, MooTools and … Continue reading Three Tips for New Developers
Letters To A New Developer 