Dear new developer, Reading the docs is so important. It is so easy, when you are confronted with a task, to just jump in and start doing. It feels right. It feels natural. It feels like progress. The problem is that it may be motion, but it probably is not progress. You may be spinning … Continue reading Read the documentation
Dear new developer, Reading code is much more common than writing code. Some might even say, "don't trust any documentation, read the code," though I consider that to be a pretty radical position. But how can you effectively read the code. This post from selftaughtcoders.com gives a good explanation: Find one thing you know the … Continue reading How to read code
Dear new developer, If you want to be good at interviews, learn your algorithms. Loads of companies treat algorithm knowledge as a proxy for general problem solving ability. It makes a certain sort of sense--you have to break down a problem into pieces, turn it into something software can digest, and implement it in code. … Continue reading Learn your standard library
Dear new developer, Seth Godin writes every single day on a variety of interesting topics. He's been blogging for years and years. Definitely an interesting person to follow. I saw this post on opportunity cost in my RSS reader (you should use one) and thought it was an interesting take on all the free content … Continue reading Opportunity Cost and the Internet
Dear new developer, A big part of your job is keeping up to date with new technologies and happenings in the tech world. This can sometimes be a distraction, because there is all kinds of new stuff coming out all the time, whether from big companies releasing new tools or platforms, people publishing interesting code … Continue reading Join an online tech community
Dear new developer, Learn two languages. When you know just one language, you can go a long way, especially if the language is dominant. In web development, that language is javascript. In system programming it's C. Both of these languages will be around forever, and you'll always be able to get a job writing them. … Continue reading Learn two languages
This is a guest blog post from Kyle Coberly. Enjoy. Dear new developer, You can do this. There's a lifetime of stuff to learn and it will seem intimidating, but if you keep doing it, you'll get better. Teenagers, career changers, and retirees all have done this, and they weren't any smarter or more naturally … Continue reading You can do this.
Dear new developer, I was chatting with someone I met at a meetup who was about to graduate from a bootcamp. I asked him what his advice to a new developer would be. He said that it would be "get used to failure, and get used to working through it." I thought that advice was … Continue reading Get used to failure
This is a guest blog post from John Obelenus. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Even when I was a kid in school I hardly wrote things down. That’s why we had textbooks after all! I was baffled by other students in college furiously transcribing every word that came out of the professor’s mouth. Now I have … Continue reading Write that down!
Dear new developer, I previously wrote about being a JIT learner and talked about it in the context of a Just In Time compiler. Just in time has another meaning, that relates to manufacturing. Delivering the right parts to the right plant at the right time revolutionized manufacturing. Just in time learning means that you … Continue reading Be a Just in Time Learner, part II
Letters To A New Developer 