I’m a web developer & data visualizer working at a think tank in D.C. I'm a self-taught dev trying to better my skills. I spend most of my time on the front end of the stack.
Location
Washington, D.C.
Work
Lead Developer at Center for Strategic and International Studies
This was a fantastic article, and I'm going to share it with my team to read. I recently was doing a code review with a newer developer and I noticed that they had made some design choices in how they wrote that code that optimized one particular section to the detriment of a couple other, more frequently used sections. My advice to them was to write code for the rule, not the exceptions. I hadn't considered how that applies more broadly to optimizing workflow, but that's definitely rings true in my experience.
Personally, I often try and over optimize before I've even begun. Every time I think of a new side project, I do what you described and try and make it generic and reusable so others can use it too. Consequently I get overwhelmed and rarely build any of the ideas I was thinking about. I really appreciate the reminder to not over-optimize in areas like that.
Every time I think of a new side project, I do what you described and try and make it generic and reusable so others can use it too. Consequently I get overwhelmed and rarely build any of the ideas I was thinking about.
I do this every time in my side projects! I get overwhelmed in architecting some ultra reusable thing up front to solve the problem I'm interested in. Instead what happens is I get lost in that forest of decisions and make 10% of the generic solution. I know I should just prototype the actual problem first and then worry about whether it's reusable later but I keep getting stuck in made up architectural issues. It's a difficult habit to break.
I'm a full stack web developer who has been freelancing for the last 20 years. I write about everything from development to production and also have video courses on my site!
Consequently I get overwhelmed and rarely build any of the ideas I was thinking about.
Yeah, this sometimes happens to me too. I think it partially stems from there being this trend where you need open source everything you work on from the beginning.
Instead of just getting your hands dirty and solving the problem you have first, you start thinking about trying to carefully code the perfect solution from the beginning because "but people are going to read my code!" or you get side tracked for 5 hours trying to decide on which license to pick.
By the time all of that happens, you throw your hands up in the air and call it quits before you even had a chance to write 1 line of code.
This is the web developer freelance business equivalent of spending a month creating business cards, an LLC and a fancy portfolio site when all you really need to do is talk to a potential client (which you could do in literally 10 minutes without any of that stuff).
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This was a fantastic article, and I'm going to share it with my team to read. I recently was doing a code review with a newer developer and I noticed that they had made some design choices in how they wrote that code that optimized one particular section to the detriment of a couple other, more frequently used sections. My advice to them was to write code for the rule, not the exceptions. I hadn't considered how that applies more broadly to optimizing workflow, but that's definitely rings true in my experience.
Personally, I often try and over optimize before I've even begun. Every time I think of a new side project, I do what you described and try and make it generic and reusable so others can use it too. Consequently I get overwhelmed and rarely build any of the ideas I was thinking about. I really appreciate the reminder to not over-optimize in areas like that.
I do this every time in my side projects! I get overwhelmed in architecting some ultra reusable thing up front to solve the problem I'm interested in. Instead what happens is I get lost in that forest of decisions and make 10% of the generic solution. I know I should just prototype the actual problem first and then worry about whether it's reusable later but I keep getting stuck in made up architectural issues. It's a difficult habit to break.
Thanks for reading.
Yeah, this sometimes happens to me too. I think it partially stems from there being this trend where you need open source everything you work on from the beginning.
Instead of just getting your hands dirty and solving the problem you have first, you start thinking about trying to carefully code the perfect solution from the beginning because "but people are going to read my code!" or you get side tracked for 5 hours trying to decide on which license to pick.
By the time all of that happens, you throw your hands up in the air and call it quits before you even had a chance to write 1 line of code.
This is the web developer freelance business equivalent of spending a month creating business cards, an LLC and a fancy portfolio site when all you really need to do is talk to a potential client (which you could do in literally 10 minutes without any of that stuff).