They say that no man is an island. This statement is as true in software development as it is anywhere else. Learning from a team is an integral part of becoming better as developers. We may prefer isolation and time alone pursuing our career, but that is not the best approach. Countless others have gone before us, and these people provide us with invaluable resources for becoming more productive. In fact, we do not even need to go to those that have gone before us. Our co-workers and others in the industry can provide access to knowledge and insight we alone can never achieve.
Learn By Osmosis
It is incredible how much can be learned by immersion. This works excellently with foreign languages. However, it also is valid for technical skills. Although a work environment can be a distraction at times, it can also be the best way to learn quickly. Many development shops include a lot of discussion around requirements and solving the latest problem. Your contributions to these discussions can help your career. Similarly, eavesdropping on them can improve your skills.
The thing is, part of becoming a better developer is expanding your ability to solve problems. One of the ways to accomplish this is through practice. The more challenges you encounter, the easier it is to provide solutions. Even new and unusual problems are more comfortable to solve when you have a large number of solutions to pull from. This is true even when you were not directly involved in the problem or solution. As with many things in life, you can learn from the mistakes and successes of others.
Teamwork
There is an old saying that two heads are better than one. I am reasonably sure this refers to two people working on a problem and not the fantasy creature with two heads known as an Ettin. There is possibly nowhere that this adage is more accurate than software development. We all have different skills and experiences that we bring to the table. This is true even when we are on a team with almost identical resumes. Life is a unique experience for everyone. Thus, we each see every problem and situation with a unique perspective.
This fact is one that we can leverage to find new solutions to problems or to get past obstacles. In fact, we can even get a huge productivity boost from a fresh perspective on a problem. I can not count how many times I have lost hours on some minor typo or bug that is obvious to the first person I have to review my work. This could be because I am not too bright or skilled. However, I prefer to see it as the very human problem of being too focused at times.
An excellent example of this is the experiment where viewers are asked to count the number of passes of a basketball among people wearing white. If you have not taken this test, then give it a try. Make sure you focus on getting that count correct. You can google “basketball pass selective attention” to find links to the video. The catch is the gorilla that shows up during the video. It is easy to miss it the first time around because of your focus. Coding is at least that mentally taxing. When we work through a problem, we often get deep into visualizing options, variables, and outcomes. This makes details sometimes easy to assume or overlook.
Learning from a team should be something you embrace. It will provide both short and long-term benefits. Go Team!
