I have been working as a software developer for the last eight years or so. In this time I have worked at a bunch of different companies in different industries and environments. Through success and lots of failures I have learned a lot. In this post I try and share some of those lessons.

1. It is probably your fault…

Developers have the tendency, after investigating a bug, to blame anything or anybody but their code. I have blamed hardware, Operating Systems, drivers, third party libraries, or code from colleagues. Guess what, most of time the bug was in my code. A humbling thought, but once you accept it, it saves you from going on a ghost hunt in that third party library, when you just should be looking at your own code.

2. Naming things is the hardest thing

When writing code we have to come up with names for a lot of things, functions, methods, classes, variables etc. Names are perhaps the most import factor in what makes code readable and easy to understand. Names provide the semantics to your code, and gives it a context. Without proper names, understanding a piece of code is an extremely difficult task. Think about those names, care for proper names and spent time to come up with good names!

3. Git everything!

Every thing you write should be under version control, be it a quick script for this one task, configuration files, or a small test program to try something new. If it is worth writing it is worth to be under version control. It will help you tremendously figuring out how a bug got introduced, what config change caused your program to misbehave, or one year from now figure out why you did made some change. There is really no reason not to use Git.

I mention Git here, any version control system works, but Git is quick and easy to create a new repository. Not familiar with Git? Have a look here.

4. There is a best way

I once gave a pack of stroopwafels to a colleague visiting from abroad. The next day he told me he he had a stroopwafel and really liked it. He also told me that he searched Google on how to eat a stroopwafel. Than he eat it the proper way, place the stroopwafel on a hot beverage, and let the syrup in the stroopwafel heat before eating it. The fact that he went on Google to search for the best way to eat a cookie baffled me, it a cookie after all. But he knew there must be a best way to eat a stroopwafel.

I think this holds true for almost anything, there is a best way to do a certain thing and someone probably found and described the best way. Here is how tie your shoe laces and this is the best way to make your bed. In the field of software engineering this holds true as well. There are best practices identified within the community, idioms for a language or framework that should be followed. Take your time to search for the best to do things, it almost always pays off.

5. Know your tools

As a developer you will use a lot of software on a daily basis. Operating systems, IDE, debugger, browser, Wireshark, Git, Bash, SSH you name it. It is really worth to learn the tools you use. Make use of cheats sheets to learn shortcuts, check out which plug-ins are available, read tutorials and spent some time searching online to get the most out of your tools.

I created a quick list on some of the things I use on a daily basis that are really helpfull to me, yet are not that well known.

Learn your tools! They help you do your job as efficient and effective as possible. They empower you.