How to Become a Better Developer

Slides for the talk I gave at Vienna.rb on 2013-10-11

Transcript

1. How to become a Better Developer
3. This code could be better
4. I could be better
5. Skill Plateaus
6. Challenge Yourself
7. Expose yourself to new experiences
8. “Here’s the thing: After that initial explosion of cognitive growth, they noticed a decline in both cortical thickness, as well as the amount of glucose used during that task. However, they remained just as good at Tetris; their skill did not decrease. The brain scans showed less brain activity during the game-playing, instead of more, as in the previous days. Why the drop?
9. ~ Andrea Kuszewski, “You can increase your intelligence” Their brains got more efficient. Once their brain figured out how to play Tetris, and got really good at it, it got lazy. It didn’t need to work as hard in order to play the game well, so the cognitive energy and the glucose went somewhere else instead.”
10. Do It
11. You are functionally blind when you only have book knowledge. Chong Kim
12. Study the masters
13. Learn the classics http://www.flickr.com/photos/zitona/3616391791/
14. You might call some of these things “computer science”, but many of the best programmers I know have no formal training in such. These things can be learned by anybody, many of them are learned best in a hands-on environment. Jesse Storimer
15. Investing your time learning things like networking, concurrency, regexes, or system programming will not go out of style in your lifetime. Jesse Storimer
16. Practice mindfully http://www.flickr.com/photos/sigurdr/5335958665/
19. Mind your body http://www.flickr.com/photos/imagesbywestfall/3896838102/
20. Grit
21. One day a monk visited Master Wq, and inquired, “Master, how will my code be different when I have mastered Vim?” Master Wq answered, “Before Vim: declare, define, process, print. After Vim: declare, define, process, print.” ~ Vim Koans
22. I’m not hiring
23. (Sorry)
24. http://nuclearsquid.com Questions?