Published inDeveloper Purpose·20 hours agoThe power of habitIt’s trite, overstated advice to talk about habits & routines. Every day, there’s some new book, article, blog post, or video about how important habits are. And yet — not many of us have what we’d call constructive habits. What gives? What’s at stake Great habits raise your baseline. Poor habits keep your…Software Development3 min readSoftware Development3 min read
Published inDeveloper Purpose·2 days agoMember-onlyBuilding a real, usable app from scratch can transform your developer careerSpecializing in one area of software development is for chumps. Still, it’s super common. I meet developers all the time who are good at only one part of software. They’re great frontend developers, or experts in a certain set of tools. It’s fine to niche down and focus your energy…Software Development3 min readSoftware Development3 min read
Published inDeveloper Purpose·2 days agoMember-onlyHow to improve as a developerIn my upcoming book, The Habits of Top Developers, each chapter ends with a set of exercises. The exercises are designed to help you reflect on your current practices and how you can improve as a developer. The exercises… Today, I want to share a few of those exercises with you, in…Coding3 min readCoding3 min read
Published inDeveloper Purpose·3 days agoMember-onlyComparison is the enemyIt’s tempting to compare yourself to others as a software developer. It’s also a trap. When you compare yourself, you make yourself unhappy. Comparison is at the heart of imposter syndrome. It’s easy to find a bunch of things that others are better at than you. When you see someone’s…Coding1 min readCoding1 min read
Published inDeveloper Purpose·5 days agoAlpha Software: Small changesThis week at Alpha Software… Daily list Like this comic? Leave it a clap or comment! Join my email list with 2,000 software developers to learn the habits & skills of top coders! — P.S — Join Medium for $5 : Access all of Medium + support me & others!Software Development1 min readSoftware Development1 min read
Published inDeveloper Purpose·5 days agoThere are too many comments in your code!You’re making life harder, not easier — This week’s video includes my hot takes on documentation and code commenting. Learn: Why I think you should only write a comment if you can’t avoid it How adding comments adds more overhead to reading and maintaining code The difference between value-add work and necessary (but evil) work What to…Software Development1 min readSoftware Development1 min read
Published inDeveloper Purpose·May 31Member-onlyThe debugging cycleHow do you systematically find the root cause of a bug? Here are three ideas: Make a hypothesis & test it. Get specific about what you expect to happen, and then find a way to try it out. Check your assumptions. Sometimes, the things you take for granted aren’t necessarily…Software Development1 min readSoftware Development1 min read
Published inDeveloper Purpose·May 30Member-onlyGet better at coding by asking incisive questions that focus your mindCoding can be overwhelming. As a developer, you have to parse through a flood of information. How do you do so quickly? How do you separate the signal from the noise? One secret lies in the questions you ask yourself. Getting really good at formulating questions forces your mind to…Software Development2 min readSoftware Development2 min read
Published inDeveloper Purpose·May 29Member-onlyDevelopers: Don’t dump your problems on other people!There’s a terrible habit. I often see it among newer developers. Early in my career, I didn’t work as a software developer. Instead, I worked in city government, administering databases of neighborhood demographics. I did a lot of mapping of projects in the city. At that job, my mentor taught…Software Development4 min readSoftware Development4 min read
Published inDeveloper Purpose·May 28Member-onlyI embarrassed myself in front of a principal engineer because I couldn’t write a Bash script.The lesson he taught me was super valuable. I’ve written on this blog before about scratchpads — scraps of code that can run your production code rapidly. Scratchpads are a big key to quick feedback loops and fast iteration. When you tighten feedback loops, you make yourself a better developer. …Software Development4 min readSoftware Development4 min read
