There is more to being a programmer than technical skills
Photo by Alexandre Debiève / Unsplash When reading the book ‘s title, you might expect it to give out a set of technical lessons. But in fact it does not. What makes this koran still relevant 20 years belated is that it teaches us that being a programmer is not all about technical potency. And we frequently overlook this fact. The script teaches us that there is more to programming than technical abilities .
The cat ate my source code
Photo by Chen Zhao / Unsplash This is the inaugural chapter in the book and is a very interesting concept. Remember that one day when we didn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate finish our homework and we said that the cad ate it ? ( actually I don ’ t remember it, because I constantly finish my homework ? ) What that – and this chapter – teaches us is actually responsibility. When you have responsibility for something, you should be prepared to be held accountable for it. If you make mistakes and can not fulfill those responsibilities, you have to make up for it and find a solution. Don ’ t make up excuses and play the finger pointing game. You can ’ t just go into ferment and tell everybody that a cat just ate your source code. Provide options, don’t make lame excuses.
It’s all about a broken window
Photo by Paweł Czerwiński / Unsplash In the bible, there is a floor about an urban area that became identical messy and run-down, all because of one break dance window. This is much like our code : when we see some dirty code ( which we can see like it ‘s a collapse window ), we might start to think that it ’ south approve to let the code be dirty. That it ’ sulfur o to equitable go back late, which most of the time we never do. Try not to leave “ broken windows ” unrepaired. When you find that kind of code, fix it up deoxyadenosine monophosphate soon as possible. When you continue to think that no matchless has the fourth dimension to fix that break code, you might vitamin a well go and buy yourself a dumpster merely to keep your code. What this chapter discusses is actually dim-witted : it ’ south about initiative and taking care of your stuff .
Take the initiative, be the catalyst
Photo by Braden Collum / Unsplash There besides might be times when you know that either something is all good or something needs to actually get done. It comes to your mind and you equitable think to yourself that it ’ s the right thing to do. If you just keep think, nothing will happen. Or if you good ask for it to be on the project timeline, you might be met with huge sport development requests and technical debt. So it ends up in another class in discussion. It ’ sulfur time to step up your plot. Work out what you can, don ’ t overdo it, but besides make it reasonable. once you got your complete theme, show it to people. They might think that “ Yeah, it might be better if we had that. ” Show them a glance of the future and people will rally around you. Be a catalyst for change .
More so, this book also teaches us about basic fundamentals that we often forget as programmers.
sometimes, the more we delve deeper and deeper into our make, the more frequently we forgot about the basic things that we learned a hanker time ago. busy chasing features and modern technical school improvements, we frequently forget that there are actually a set more things that we need to pay attention to beforehand before going deep .
Clean code
Photo by Oliver Hale / Unsplash One of the most basic principles we often forget about is clean code. As features are piling up more and more, the codebase become fat and technical debt rises. But we must constantly remember to keep our code coherent and houseclean every time we write it. One of the things that is mentioned in the book is the DRY rationale ( Don ’ t Repeat Yourself ). It is related to code reusability. Duplication is evil and that ‘s the truth. Duplicate code will make maintaining your code very hard, and it can cause confusion when you need to change a feature or fix a wiretap.
Remember that fourth dimension when you needed to fix some of your code ? And you realized that there was code that was very exchangeable to the sting you equitable changed ? so then you got tantalum change that share besides, and another besides, and then possibly this spot too…you get the painting. Like a woodcutter, finding the correct and proper tools is very important. Before a woodcutter starts cutting trees. they have to decide – do they need a chain saw ? Or is an ax estimable enough ? Or possibly there is a brand fresh lightsaber they can use. But using kitchen knife might take some time to cut down a tree. It ‘s alike for programmers : this book teaches us that it ’ s identical important for us to find the proper tools before we start working ( like a good code editor program ). We should n’t jump right to coding. For case, it ’ s actually possible to code using Windows notepad and compile it using the cabinet. But is it the good creature for you ? Try to find the best editor that you are most comfortable using. Learning and mastering it and it will increase your productiveness by several times. There are several editors mentioned in the ledger, such as Emacs or Vim. But nowadays you can find more advanced code editors such as ocular Studio Code. Find one that suites you. It ‘s like your taste in coffee – some people prefer lattes and others prefer cappuccinos .
Don’t program by coincidence
This is one very authoritative point noted in the book. In all of our programming journey, there have likely been times when we were precisely coding blindly and unexpectedly… and somehow it merely worked. You probably were n’t indisputable what you were actually doing, so you kept adding more and more code and it inactive worked. That is, until one day when there was an return and you tried to remove some chunk of code and it wholly broke everything. And you were not sure which piece caused it. Relying on unknowns is very dangerous. When you are not sure what the code is supposed to do, try to simplify it and make sure that the code is reliable in its own right, not barely dependable by chance. trust only on things you are sure of. Don ’ thyroxine plan by coincidence .
Unit test
Testing is a hot topic these days. And yes, it was besides an important subject 20 years ago ( and it will always be ). But sometimes people forget about unit of measurement tests these days. They might have fair finished their code and they assumed everything was okay … until the code ended up broken in output because of edge cases. In regulate to maintain stability and refactor safely, we always need to keep our code protected by writing unit tests. And it ’ mho never enough if your tests only cover the happy path. Perform pitiless testing on your code, and remember that your code is not finished until you ‘ve covered every available trial. unit test will help you be confident that your patch of code is truly done .
Taking ownership
There ‘s one last thing I want to talk about. As we know, programmers like to leave ‘ legacies ’ behind, in the form of code. And yes, most of the time it ’ randomness badly. Being a programmer, we ought to take pride in our own influence. We should be gallant of the responsibility we ‘ve been given and the piece of code we have been working on. When we are finally able to take pride in our code and own it, we will be able to leave a adept bequest behind. And people will see our code as a key signature. When they see our code, they ‘ll know that it will be solid and well-written, by a master .
Finishing up
There are even more topics covered in this book that I haven ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate discussed here, such as Requirements and Teamwork. If you are concerned in exploring these topics, you should try to find and read the book ! just a note, however : equally much as I liked the book, some stuff merely did n’t seem relate-able, looking at how previous the koran is ( 20 years old ). It talks about old languages such as Prolog, and speaks about OOP like it ’ s a in truth new concept – so these oddities just do n’t seem right. But it can ’ thymine be blamed since it ‘s already a couple decades honest-to-god. aside from that most of the stuff covered in the book is hush quite relevant to the current age of Programming, like those topics I covered above.
Read more: The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2020
If I was trying to sum everything up in this book, I ‘d say it basically covers everything I have ever read on the Web about becoming a better engineer. Thanks for reading my article about The pragmatic sanction programmer ! Hopefully it has given you some insight into your travel as a Programmer or Software Engineer. And grab yourself a copy of the reserve if you are interest in learning more. P.S. I wrote this article on my own, without any means of advertising or marketing from a third base party. The covering photograph was taken from amazon ‘s web site .
