There's nothing unusual if you want to become a developer. Perhaps you'd want to create web applications, mobile apps, or even some sort of a game. However, the issue is whether or not you believe yourself to be competent enough. I attempted to explain some of the indicators that suggest that you're really a great developer or not.
Programming is a Profession That Requires Constant Learning
Thus, you can assume knowing several programming languages or having some experience in this field isn't sufficient to call yourself good at it. The only way you're able to understand if are truly talented enough for something is when you spend years working on projects and solving problems - just like any other developer out there does. If the outcome was great then most likely your skills are highly appreciated by others too!
In other words, if you can create a basic project like a calculator or even something more complicated in a Programming Language that you understand well, then you truly understand how it works, and this is critical.
You Have to Be Confident in Your Skills
In other words, before starting doing something you need to ask yourself, “Can I do it myself? Do I have enough knowledge and skills?” if the answer is no so you shouldn’t start to do this project. Also, you need to be able to build things alone, in a theoretical way, of course. That will make you think about your current experience and what you should learn.
Good developers are constantly able to accomplish what they set out to do, as well as produce high-quality results immediately and consistently.
Of course, working with your coworkers to establish the project is preferable, but there may be times when you’ll be alone with no one to assist you, therefore you’ll need to be able to work independently and have faith that you can accomplish this task on your own.
Of course, working with your coworkers to establish the project is preferable, but there may be times when you'll be alone with no one to assist you, therefore you'll need to be able to work independently and have faith that you can accomplish this task on your own.
Programming Isn't The Only Thing That They're Good at!
They usually have a wide range of skills and are interested in various other activities like music, movies, sports, etc. Consequently, they can easily communicate with different types of people which is always an advantage when working on a project with a team.
It also aids them in performing their job more effectively. For instance, you've been given a freelance order to create a completely Working Website for someone's service, such as a generator of images from sentences or an AI with a paid subscription and other features. So to complete the task, you'll need to understand this field well and not just how to make a beautiful navbar or animated scrollbar. I believe you see my point.
You Must Be Familiar With Your Tools
This quote is extremely relevant for this particular subject. Good developers not only possess great coding skills but also know their development environments (such as IDEs) very well and use all the shortcuts available to make their work faster.
Additionally, they understand the principles behind the code they write and why it works instead of just blindly following some tutorials.
Developers are self-taught
I assume you've heard this statement before, but do you actually know what it means? This term implies that the person never attended any special school or classes to learn Programming. Consequently, they just started working on projects and found themselves doing something new every day which developed their programming skills along with time.
Without a doubt having some sort of education in Programming is advantageous because there's lots of stuff to study in order to become great at it (similarly like when studying for an exam). However, if your primary goal is only becoming good enough then most likely developing these skills alone will be sufficient. Just remember about practicing every day!
You're Good If You Can Create Something
When I say creating, I mean Programming a piece of software, not designing it. There is an entire world outside Programming and creating websites or mobile apps which requires creativity as well (such as drawing).
However, we're talking about Programming now so if you can create something complicated without using any tutorials to assist you then this fact confirms that your skills are worth being valued by other people! It's all about challenging yourself because the more difficult task is solved successfully, the better developer you become! So don't be afraid of challenges - embrace them instead!
No Need To Read This Article
If you're already a good developer then there is no reason in reading this article! You know everything that was written here, or at least most of it because I'm sure some points are new to you. So congratulations on becoming awesome at Programming and discovering how important it is to be able to work alone without assistance (except when needed)! Good luck with your tasks, projects, and career progressions!
Top comments (61)
Good Developers Don't Need Anyone's help
?
I agree with here with Lars, whaat?
Good developers are always open to opposite opinions, critics and overall input.
They DO NOT do everything by themselves.
A Good developer knows it's own strengths and ALWAYS asks for help if they're stuck.
They do get stuck too, because they are not stamping the same landing pages over and over, they find ways to automate the routine things and spend their time to create new tools, methods or improve existing ones.
/endrant
Stackoverflow
What you didn't get? If you think that you're a good developer, then you can do everything by yourself. Of course, you should not, as I said, however it tells more about your abillities
Just entirely wrong,, you'd never learn the random poorly Doc'd bits of code, or the shorter ways of doing something ,anywhere near as fast without other people helping
If you're able to to everything by yourself, you're likely not able to do anything well.
There are different kinds of developers for a reason. Web, OS, distributed, system tooling etc. And even those I listed have subcategories. Moreover there are appropriate languages to use for the different categories. So let's say you're a good Linux kernel developer. That means you're really really good with C. You're likely not gonna be an ideal choice for web development though. Flip side, you could be a savant with JavaScript, but Linus would likely rip you a new one for whatever patch you submitted to Linux.
For example I'm mainly a python developer, I can quarter ass my way through SQL, but it won't be efficient, likely it'll be a terrible query but that's because I've not dedicated the time I have to SQL that I have to python. If you ask me to write JavaScript you'll regret it, but if I'm developing within my toolbox as it were, it'll be pretty good.
Different people have different skill sets and being a good developer requires that you understand how you're good.
So, no. A good developer is likely not going to be able to do everything themselves, a good developer should be able to understand implications across the stack but then go submit a ticket when there's a bug outside their space and have the good developer for the given category handle the issue on their end.
Yeah i also failed on step 2
Alright, I'm actually tired already to tell you. You need to be sure that you can do this project yourself, be sure that you know all technologies for this specific project. And again, of course, you need to find solutions from others and build things together, but as I said, only have the confidence
I haven't logged into this site in years but had to for this, what a joke.
Good devs don't need anyone's help.
Sounds like someone who does a bunch of contract temp jobs and has to prove himself to stay the full 6mo. Everyone needs help. Its frowned upon to not expose blockers and continue to grind away at a problem alone. Newer devs and people learning programming, DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS GUY. Be verbose, ask questions and please for your sanity, ASK QUESTIONS.
If a newer employee does not ask questions I assume they are trying to impress me/the team with how good they are. I know exactly what you're struggling on and can help, I assigned you the task on purpose as a learning experience and to see what questions you are going to ask. Quit being proud and ask for help.
I guess being good is subjective, people I’ve worked with who I consider great developers are;
I think for me at least it’s more the mindset and less the skill. Most people with x years of experience are good at the programming part.
This. The author completely neglected to mention what kind of development he's talking about, but speaking as a reverse engineer - learning how to cope with failure is increasingly important. You're not always going to find a function to hook or a loophole to exploit, and not every customer is going to like the ideas you have or the code that you write. It doesn't matter if you've been programming for 35 years or 3 months... Failure and rejection is part of the business, and being humble enough to accept that, ask the correct questions, and put the work before your ego is just as important as (maybe more important than) your technical ability.
Hmm, some thoughts:
sorry to say but this article was completely useless.. like i recently started learning computer language and by clicking on this i just want something that pushes me over my limits..not something that puts me down
Yeah
Sorry bro
what a shit site that gathers these ppl....
If any developer tries to become a good developer according to this article then they are likely to end up working for themselves alone with great satisfaction with their IDE knowledge and 0 extra courses taken. Bad part is, such "great" devs will have problems working on any big valuable project where codebase can never fit to one "know-it-all" developer's head.
Today due to complexity of real projects TEAMS get great things done, not individuals. IT knowledge is a multidimensional space and you can never know everything. As it has already been said below, good dev knows thier strengths (their "strong dimensions") and delegate/learn TO/WITH more experienced colleagues. And that includes asking questions and pointing out to lack of your knowledge.
I am so confused, is this article supposed to be sarcastic or ironic?
who not both?
Hey all!
Just a reminder to please treat each other with respect and kindness on DEV.
It's absolutely okay to disagree with the ideas put forth by the author, but remember to follow our Code of Conduct and try to keep the criticism directed at the ideas put forth in the post rather than at the author.
Let's try our best to be empathetic and patient with one another!
I think I've got the point of the article. Despite you're able to do the whole work alone it doesn't mean you have to. You have to be smart enough to understand the problem and call the right people for help in order to get things done faster.
YEEEAH! Man, I just love you, I tried to say it for all people who are commenting this article. I personally, figured out this quote a long time ago from Kalle Hallden and tried to explain to you guys. Everything that you have to do to is to be sure that you can do it alone, but never, never do it alone :)
this post is straight from management
I must be a bad developer...
Though I satisfy my clients requirements and solve their problems...
As a new developer,
I like to learn and relearn,
I Google stuff when I am stuck, I get unstuck and continue moving.
I ask for help from people with experience..
I blindly copy code that works and needed in a particular project and I go back to dissect it to see why and how it works, so in my next project I implement it with confidence.
I have seen senior programmers struggle with code for hours. and I have seen a newbee breeze through the same code.
Its programming lol. It can make you seem like a god and make you think you can set the rules
If good developer does not ask for help, then maybe he should also keep his opinions to himself 🤷🏻♂️.
This article summarizes exactly what I thought made a good developer before I got an education and a software engineering job. The most egregious misstatements are:
"Good developers don't need anyone's help"
A good developer knows when to ask for help. Our job is to engineer software, not reinvent the wheel. Failure to ask for help or information when you need it can be a blocker to your own productivity.
"You're Good If You Can Create Something
When I say creating, I mean Programming a piece of software, not designing it."
Good software is MADE at the design stage. Writing code that does what you want is the easy part. Scalability, extensibility, availability, instrumentation, fit for purpose -- all of these things should be considered and determined at the design stage and require much more thought and effort than the actual programming. The ability to execute on the design is a bare minimum requirement to be a developer at all.
SOURCE: I'm a software development engineer at Amazon
You aren't a good developer if you do everything yourself.
Discussing approaches and how something can be implemented with others is crucial. Two pairs of eyes are better than one.
This post is just a bunch of nonsense.
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