5 key points in enjoying writing code for a living
Remember the first time you typed a few lines of code and something magical happen on a computer because of that? Chances are you do if you’re a profesional programmer who enjoys his or her craftsmanship. I’m going to share a little bit of my journey into coding from my personal path (university -> job field -> self improvement/online learning -> repeat last two steps), if you’re a self taught coder as so many out there don’t quit on this post just yet. You might learn a thing or two, or the very lest feel related to some of them.
Back in college, my workflow for a coding assignment was as follow:
- Kind of understand the requirements
- Code my way through it
- Tweak as I gather feedback from my peers and/or subject teacher.
Fast forward some years into my first two or three jobs and the process was pretty much the same with different actors; ask the client/project manager once I was halfway in the development process and “refine” the project to sort of fit what It was expected to do. If you’re currently following this same process, then you’re no stranger to the daily pain disguised as stress of no productivity, long after hours shift in order to meet deadlines and probably a generalized unfulfillment towards the job itself (maybe even asking youself if it all worth it).
Leaving deep philosophical/existential questions aside, I’m here to tell you there is hope and It doesn’t have to be like this at all. I’ve been there so trust me when I say most of our daily frustrations are self imposed and are reversible, no without some (major) adjustments in our general behavior.
1. Be professional from the very beginning.
The beginning of Clean coder was quite eye-opening for me due to the meaning of the tale uncle Bob describe in it. In a nutshell, he tells the story of how the company they were working for saw their financial department as a group of professionals and their IT department didn’t fit (in their manager’s eyes) that category. Then he goes on further to explain how to handle ourselves in our working environment in order to be perceived as such.
It’s an excellent book and I can’t recommend it enough but the bottomline of it all is this: ACT AS A F*CK!NG PROFESSIONAL IF YOU’RE EXPECTED TO BE TREATED AS ONE.
My bad If I got upset but It’s extremely nerve-racking when I see a peer of mine giving such loosely and careless answers such as “it should work”, “it ran on my machine” or (one of the most repeated phrases in IT world when a bug is reported) “that’s impossible”. In such circumstances It’s only understandable why managers and clients alike can and will lose trust in our word.
2. Ask until you get it
In one of my previous jobs I had the opportunity to work with a brilliant technical lead (with a huge impostor syndrome complex) who used to tell me, whenever he noticed I didn’t fully understand a requirement handed to me:
“Ask, ask and then ask again. Keep asking questions until you get what you need to implement and why”.
It sounds silly but I’ve noticed it is really common to feel shame in asking questions due to a dumb fear of being perceived as incompetent or flat out a pain in the 🍑. Two things:
- No one is going to think less of you for asking clarification on a given requirement. Chances are it was poorly written in the first place or that you’re dealing with a complex scenario which requieres deep knowledge on a really specific business rule which leads me to the second point
- The real pain in the ass is doing something you weren’t supposed to do in the first place. Management father himself famously said it:
There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all — Peter F. Drucker
If you want to read the full article, head over to my blog to check it out
