Comment by _m8fo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _m8fo | Hacker News Reader

Shocking to me that there are so many articles on this. The strategy to becoming a good programmer is the same strategy to become good at anything else.

1. Identify what it means to be good

2. Work endlessly towards that aim

3. Deliberately practice

4. Decide to refine strengths or squash weaknesses. Do this as frequently as possible. Make sure you have an accurate assessment of what your strengths and weaknesses are. (5) and (6) can help with this.

5. Consult the advice of those more experienced. As frequently as possible

6. Allow your work to be publicly scrutinized. Do not work privately, the feedback loop should be as tight as possible to inform (1)

7. Repeat (1) - (6) as frequently as possible

Do that and you will become better. Guaranteed. Note, this won't necessarily make you the best. However, it will make you better. Continue this process until you're as good as you desire. There, of course, are diminishing returns after a while.

>1. Identify what it means to be good

You'll never get a solid definition for a good programmer, and that's the problem. If we knew that, we would have a list of things to learn and teach and we could easily make that a standard interview test before giving people a job. And no one would need to write any more "10 things you need to know as a programmer" articles.

If you ask other programmers, you will get a bunch of answers. If you ask the guy who cuts your checks, a good programmer is someone who can solve their problems and make their business more efficient.

The guy that cuts the checks doesn't know if the programmer is sacrificing long term maintenance for short term problem solving.

This is a good generalized process for getting better at anything, but it's still awfully subjective and squishy once you try to apply it to a given domain. How do you `Identify what it means to be good`? How exactly do you `Deliberately practice`? How do you assess your strengths and weaknesses? How do you find someone more experienced? How do you know that experience has given them good lessons?

Answering all those questions for a given domain is how we have so many articles like this. Everyone has their own take, and it can be useful to look at others' so you can compare it to your own.

Step five is, in my experience, one of the fastest ways to get better. Very solid list of steps.

> 1. Identify what it means to be good

https://dimitrov2k.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/what-does-it-tak...

Works for life, really.

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