5 Tips for creating good code every day; or how to become a good software developer
Being a good developer is like being any other good professional, it’s all it’s about doing as much quality work as possible. There is a popular sentence that summarises it: “Do it. Do it right. Do it right now”.
1.- Have your own to do list for the day.
The best approach to complete complex activities is to break them down into simple activities. Do this every morning by breaking down the different activities you would like to complete for the day and assign them a schedule. This will help you to:
- Have a better understanding of the activity.
- Have a focused goal for the day
- Improve your estimating skills. After a few days you will find that you can predict how much work you can do in a day.
2.- Do one thing at a time.
It’s been proven by different studies and published in different media (ie CNN) that it is more productive to be focus only on one task than to do multitasking.
Work in short batches of intense work of about 25 minutes with a 5-10 minutes rest. There are popular techniques like the pomodoro technique to help you manage the time. There are also tools to help you measure the time you spent on the different tasks, my favorite one is CoolTimer.
3.- Do it right.
There are two keys to know if something is done right
- To be proud of the solution; it is not just any solution, it is a good solution. It follows the principles of the “Pyramid of the software quality“.
- The solution passes at least one review. Ask one of your colleagues that you respect as a good developer to review your solution and for his sincere opinion.
4.- Don’t finish something until it’s completely done.
We all know that if there’s still a glass to wash, we cannot say that we have done the dishes, the same applies for painting a wall or driving to a destination but in software development we don’t do that, we say that we are done even when we haven’t completed all the unit tests or when we haven’t checked if the implementation is correct with the customer, that’s a typical behavior from Hope Driven Development and that’s evil.
Something is only done when you are 100% sure that it won’t be necessary to work at all on that solution unless the requirements change.
5.- Better late than sorry BUT better sorry than never.
If it’s going to take you an extra day to complete the testing of some code, or to refactor a class which is unreadable, do it, that’s an investment in time for the future, but if you are stuck with something and you are delaying the project too much, just find an easier solution. It may not be as elegant as the one you are implementing, but at least you will have a solution. Make sure to document it as future risk for the project and something that will probably need to be revisited.
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[...] 5 Tips for creating good code every day; or how to become a good software developer « Making Good S… "Being a good developer is like being any other good professional, it’s all it’s about doing as much quality work as possible. There is a popular sentence that summarises it: “Do it. Do it right. Do it right now”." (tags: software programming development productivity) [...]
links for 2009-05-16 | Yostivanich.com
16 May 09 at 2:06 pm
Good list. This could apply to life in general, not inly programming.
BlackWasp
16 May 09 at 5:22 pm
“Have a better understanding of the activity.”
I think this is key. When you’re going to write a section of code, write out what you’ll be doing, and how you’ll be doing it, in plain English a few times, to get a grip on the entire situation.
It’ll really help you form a better solution, and find and fix any potential problems, /before/ you’ve taken the time to write all of that code.
Patrick
17 May 09 at 3:09 am
[...] pm on May 17, 2009 | # | 0 Tags: how to, utilities http://makinggoodsoftware.com/2009/05/15/5-tips-for-creating-good-code-every-day-how-to-become-a-goo... http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/ [...]
http://makinggoodsoftware.com/2009/05/15 … « runningfurs.com
17 May 09 at 4:30 am
This post could also be titled “How to advance from a junior software developer to a senior software developer”, because no one should be promoted without mastering these simple techniques. Great post!
Scott
17 May 09 at 3:16 pm
I just want to chime in that I think tip #2 here is really important. I have had it with the mythology about multitasking. I wish the view that it is better to do one thing at a time would really return to popularity.
neo
17 May 09 at 3:46 pm
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7 Jul 09 at 9:43 am
I agree that this is so good, I hope that all programers could apply it in your jobs and yours own lifes.
An other thing that would be good to us is objectivity.
Targino Silveira
11 Jul 09 at 11:08 am
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21 Aug 09 at 8:56 pm
#3 is extremely important, good list
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22 Oct 09 at 1:22 pm
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25 Oct 09 at 9:48 am
Thanxz to publish this article.
Its Too Good For Fresher in software developement.
Plz Publish more articles.
Vishal
21 Feb 10 at 9:31 pm
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Faça. Faça direito. Faça agora. « Sérgio Souza
24 Mar 10 at 5:36 am
Thanks for these tips. Surely they seem very good. Thumbs UP
prodej obrazu
22 Jul 10 at 2:21 am