What makes a good programmer?
These are some of the things I think make a good programmer:
- Don’t tie yourself down to 1 language. The programming language is your tool, just like a hammer is to a builder. You should always use the best tool (language) for the job at hand. Every new language leads to new ways of thinking, and better ways of doing things.
- Programming is not just your ‘job’. I’m happy to accept there will be exceptions, however in my opinion if you only program for your job, then you will never be a great programmer. All the greatest programmers I have met, they ‘live’ programming. Note this does not mean you’re supposed to code 24/7, but if you really enjoy programming, then you’re likely to be doing it outside work too.
- Understand that there is usually a better way of doing things, but sometimes you have to find the balance. Its not always best to spend 6 months writing an awesome bit of code, sometimes you have to be able to analyze whats really needed. Your time might be better spent writing a rough prototype of the code, so other members of the team can get started quicker. You can always go back to re-factor it later.
- Learn to analyze and predict problems in advance. When your making changes, think of the repercussions and how it effects other parts of the code.
- Test your code properly. A QA team is no excuse for not testing code properly yourself. Ideally you should also have some way of automating tests too.
- Split up problems into management chunks. If you have a long list of things that need changing, try to split them up into completely separate tasks. Its very easy to start making too many changes in one go, and then it gets confusing when things go wrong (at what point did I break that bit of code, was it fix A, B or C??). The best way, is to make small changes that do not break the code for long periods of time. This way changes can regularly be committed to revision control, which makes life a lot easier when you need to track your changes to find the source of a bug, or roll back to a earlier version.
- Don’t be a rebel, respect the existing code style. If you are working in a team, you should all be working to the same code style. Being a rebel and going against the grain is not smart or clever. You might think that your code style is superior, but no one cares! Code with 1 consistent style is much easier to read, than one with 10 different code styles, from 10 different programmers who all think they know best.
- Work well with others and respect other people’s views and abilities. Programming is as much about being able to work on your own, as it is being able to work well in a team.
Posted: October 9th, 2008 under General.
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