Innovation comes from commodification. Once storage became a commodity, Amazon could offer its flexible storage solutions. Once fast internet connections became a commodity, Netflix could offer its on-demand services.
Your time is precious, save as much of it as you can. Automate everything. Once your time is a commodity, you can achieve your next great innovation.
Your time is precious, save as much of it as you can. Automate everything. Once your time is a commodity, you can achieve your next great innovation.
- Use a powerful IDE (like vim), and configure it to do as much as possible for you. Strive for single command Build/Test/Deploy/Run.
- If you find yourself doing things frequently, make them happen in one button press, or one click. Or better yet, make them happen automatically.
- Learn keyboard shortcuts and the unix command line. Almost any IDE will let you run complex build commands and even arbitrary terminal commands - these can be powerful and save you significant amounts of time.
- Ask questions, then ask more questions. If something is happening that you don't understand, ask why. Then ask why that is. Then go away and research alternatives, and propose them. Ask questions until you could explain in complete detail to the next new developer that asks why. I am frequently surprised at the number of developers that don't do this and just rely on the "because its always been/worked like that."
- Challenge the status quo by providing better alternative solutions - and make significant steps towards implementing them. If your tests are incomplete, or run once a day/week - then become the local Continuous Integration guru - pitch to your team the benefits and implement it. Once you are using it and it is helping you work better then get your team using it too.
- Don't just challenge others, challenge yourself. Never written a web app? Write one. Never done python? Hijack UAVs with python.
- Own something. Create something. Doesn't have to be a technical project, could be an event, like a meetup or a hackathon, could be a game, a website, a blog.
- Teach something. Java, public speaking, writing, chess, vim, tennis.
- Be a beacon of excellence. Got a class/component that is rubbish? Fix it. Write code the right way. Don't take shortcuts in your code. Make intelligent decisions and justify the pros and cons why you made that decision to those around you. Always make improvements to your code. Spot a TODO that would take less than an hour? Just Do It.
- Browse the Stack Exchange in a topic you are familiar - like your favourite language. When you find something new to you, bottom out your knowledge of it as fast as possible. Know C? Whats branch prediction? This post will tell you - learn.
- Browse the Stack Exchange in a topic you are unfamiliar - everyday's a school day.
- Learn to communicate. Written word, presenting, problem solving, small intense projects, large teams, small teams.
- Document everything you do as you go. You can refer back to why you did things and rely on your previous solution to similar problems when faced with them. It also helps to capture your thought process and key pieces of information you may forget. I frequently flick back through my diary over the previous few days' work.
- Document your code before you've written it. Use system diagrams, class hierarchies, flow charts to show how your code will work. If people have suggestions - and they will - you can make amendments much easily than when you have actually written the code. This is the other biggie that I see surprisingly few people do which can have the most negative effects.
- Be specific. So you've crafted your diagram for your new thing. Show it to everybody. Gather as much detail as possible. Ensure everybody agrees with the diagram, and if they don't change the diagram. If anybody puts pen on your diagram, add those additions/corrections to the diagram. Keep the diagram up-to-date.
- Learn about unconscious bias and male privilege. Learn about MBTI and which personality type you are and more importantly, how to interact best with other personality types. Learn about Emotional intelligence. Everybody in the world is different to you, and you need to know how to interact with them in the most efficient and constructive ways.
- Regularly do something for your team. Bring in cookies. Teach a magic trick. Cultivate a bit of culture and encourage others to do the same. Only praise other peoples' contributions. A cohesive team is hard to beat.
- Learn how to work with people. I personally really enjoyed The Pragmatic Programmer's "stone soup."
- Understand and use other people's code. If you are implementing your own xml parser or csv reader or git hook there is a good chance you are Doing It Wrong.
- Once you have written your code, and it works and passes your tests, go back and tidy it up. Re-run the tests. Now tidy it up some more. Each class should have a single responsibility and each function should do one thing. Functions should be less than 20 lines long in most instances. Use self documenting names for functions and variables. Spending time tidying up your code will be repaid 10-fold to you and the rest of your team.
- Get involved. Take responsibility. If something isn't right, fix it. If the deadlines are slipping suggest a solution and make others aware as soon as possible. Anybody can do this, even the most junior developers. This requires understanding of the bigger picture of the project, its direction and deadlines - so again - get involved. Save the day!
- Share lessons learned (when appropriate) with your team. Just figured out what happens when throwing an exception from inside a finally block in Java? Share it.