Fat Agnus

Many have talked about how one could become a better developer and some of those people are on to some of the right things, but there are also some ideas which are totally ridiculous. I remember I once read that you should learn RoR (ruby on rails) because it looked pretty… wtf.. that wont make you better!! I won’t mention any names, because you know who you are, and no, I don’t have anything against RoR.

Ok, back to the point. What does it take to become a better developer? I have listed a few pointers that can make you better, if you really want it.

Read books

Every new developer knows that they have to read a book so they can make their first “Hello world” program, but that doesn’t make you a good developer. You have to read more than just one book; you actually have to read quit a lot. The reason for this is that the most important job a developer has is too solve problems with the use of software and you won’t impress many people with your “Hello world” program and if you know more about different technologies and so on, then you will become better to combine these technologies that will solve the problems in better ways.

Books I recommend

Learn by doing

Reading will get you going, but if that is all you are doing then you wont obtain any practical experience and without that your knowledge will be kind of useless. Another great thing about trying out the stuff you read about is that it will help your brain remember better, so create something, anything, with your newfound knowledge and keep doing it. You can also learn a lot from other peoples mistakes and if you want to see some of the more ridiculous solutions that some developers comes up with, then I suggest you head over to The Daily WTF (after you finish here of cause)

Be passionate

Reading and trying out things will get you fare, but since you are reading this, then I guess you want to get further then that. So here is one of the most important things. Every great developers have one thing in common - they are passionate about making software. They want to make great software and will go that extra mile so their code will be perfect. The passion is something that is natural for them, so if a “Hello world” program doesn’t turn you on just a little bit, then I would advise you to do something else with your life. I know it sounds harsh, but there is some truth in it and you can force yourself to become passionate.

Understand the mortals

If you want to achieve greatness in this line of business, then learn to understand the customers and also make sure that the customers understand you. One of the great problems in this business is the problem with communication between customers and developers and that usually results in a lot of unnecessary work and frustrations. I don’t believe that this is something that everyone can learn, but it doesn’t hurt if you work on it anyway.

Be humble

When software fails it will in 99% of the time be your own fault, don’t blame the users for putting in stupid data or clicking on something in the wrong order. This is probably a wide spread issue among developers and I believe that everyone once in a awhile will blame someone or something else for an error that they probably made (even I do it sometimes. A man gotta have his pride).