Detailed Notes
In the latest episode of Building Better Developers, Rob and Michael continue their journey through Season 23, “Building Better Habits.” In Episdoe 5 the focusing on improving coding skills. Like diving into why developers should consistently refine techniques, stay updated with evolving coding standards, and explore new tools. This hosts go beyond just writing code; it’s about forming habits that make continuous learning an essential part of a developer’s daily routine.
*Read More*... https://develpreneur.com/improving-coding-skills-building-better-developers-by-building-better-habits/
*Episode Challenge:* A Week of Learning Challenge for Improving Coding Skills
The episode wraps up with a learning challenge for the week: pick one coding or technology-related topic to explore. Rob and Michael recommend choosing a topic that complements the developer’s current skill set, whether it’s a new feature in a familiar language, articles on coding standards, or recent security protocols. By setting aside a small amount of time each day to learn something new, developers can gradually build knowledge and gain new insights for a week.
*Additional Resources*
* Incremental Improvement and Progress – Do It Now (https://develpreneur.com/incremental-improvement-and-progress-do-it-now/) * Mastering Skills In Under Ten Thousand Hours (https://develpreneur.com/mastering-skills-in-under-ten-thousand-hours/) * Self-Confidence That Comes From Incremental Improvement (https://develpreneur.com/self-confidence-that-comes-from-incremental-improvement/) * Implementing An Incremental Approach – Small Progress is Still Progress (https://develpreneur.com/implementing-an-incremental-approach-small-progress-is-still-progress/)
*Follow-us on:*
* https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g/featured * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://twitter.com/develpreneur * http://linkedin.com/develpreneur
Transcript Text
[Music] and there we go we are back all right I want to talk about improving your coding skills uh I know this is going to be one of those it's going to be sort of a a challenge but um I think everybody needs to do it I want to grab a site real quick to make sure I'm actually looking at the right site when I do this that is not it is that the one yes it is let's see is there a pricing on this while I'm sitting there there we go okay so let's talk about I think this that's what it's going to be and it'll be a uh this one actually I started for myself to build a habit a while back was um to spend just like I I've put down I put on my schedule 15 minutes minutes a day to go back and it's just focused on do code better something like that it's not writing code necessarily as much as it is exploring like researching how do I do that what are best practices and and things of that nature and so um I think that's where I want to go because it's actually turned out to be really interesting uh it's been a great way for me to actually a great way for me to add a couple of a sense add a couple skills or keep some skills from getting too rusty because I'm going to recommend a tool as part of this uh that I think actually that may end up being the U the actual challenge uh it's a place called Cod signal.com um and I'll tell a little bit story about how I ran into that uh but I think that'll be a good one for us uh any questions or anything because think talked about any questions before we dive into it uh so we're I just want to make sure I stay in the lane of this discussion so we're discussing like coding skills specifically like coding standards sdks best practices stay away from soft skills interviews business skills keep it to the Cod 100% yeah because this is stuff that like we do all the time and it's easy for us to say hey we do it all the time and we're fine at it and then we're not our Co our skills are aged and out you know we don't want to be that person that was the Cobalt programmer back you know that had been writing code for 40 years and then suddenly new languages showed up and they were like oh no I'm not going to do that I can't handle that stuff you know we want to be constant L learning and growing three two one well hello and welcome back we are continuing our season where we are building better habits but you may say that's not what I saw that's right you saw building better developers developer newer that's what we are we're a podcast a website videos all that kind of goodness because we are working towards building better developers this season how do we take these developers that we're talking to yes that means you and build habits how do we walk through habits how have we done it how do we recommend other people do it and as a community how do we work to make ourselves better with each of these episodes there is going to be homework there's going to be an action item at the end there's going to be a we'll call it a challenge if that helps if it helps us gamify it then so be it that's what we're looking for now before we get into it my name is Rob Broadhead I am one of the founders of developing or building better developers also a founder of RB Consulting where we really focus on helping companies use technology better A lot of time if your company's in a situation where they're like what do I really have and how much do we use it that's a perfect time for us to step in and say let us help you with that let's look at what is that you have what is the the technology that you have what is the sprawl maybe that you have of all these applications and all these users and all these different things they use and how do we find ways to clean that stuff up through integration simp ification automation find ways to make you leverage that better help you leverage that better and also cut out the crap that you don't need remove the duplicate kinds of applications and features and functions and things like that streamline stuff so that you go from being like that big ugly Homer Simpson car that's got everything in the world on it to like a you know an F1 racer that is stripped down to doing the thing that it does best good things and bad things as a good thing uh I have gone through this week and have Dove I've dived into one of these kinds of projects and the good thing was it took a while because it's a big company it's like it seems small but you guys if you're a developer you know I finally got access to code repository so I can actually look at code I finally got I was able to do see a bunch of different stuff but I finally now have the permission so I can actually go look at the code and instead of guessing my way into stuff and saying do you do this did you ever think of that do you try this how is this set up I can actually go look at it and say hey you did that great or hey why don't you take a look at and do it better bad thing uh as a Bad Thing gosh now I don't I don't have a I had a whole lot of bad stuff last time I was thinking about it and this time I'm trying to think of bad things um a bad thing is it is getting towards the the end of the month and the the fall times that we have here and the back and forth of the weather can make it very difficult for those of us that have allergies and sinuses and things like that and so my bad thing which is sort of combined with good yesterday I think I went through an entire box of Kleenex because I was just blowing my nose blowing my nose blowing my nose blowing my nose so the good thing is I had extra boxes of Kleenex the bad thing is I had to utilize an entire box I'm pretty sure yesterday someone who actually is very sympatico with that whole thing on the other side going to introduce himself Michael go for it hey everyone my name is Michael M I'm one of the co-founders of develop prur building better developers I'm also the founder of Envision QA if you are a business clinician small Independent Business looking for help with your software you're it's either custom software it's not working you need help supporting it where your goto company if you have multiple tools that you're paying for that don't just quite cut it we will also help you by building or assessing what you have identifying areas of improvement and we can help kind of guide you on the path to getting the right tools for what you need be it custom or purchased good thing bad thing uh good thing we're finally getting rain it has been weeks since we've had rain here and oh my God it is like a dust bowl uh so good thing bad thing because of the Dust Bowl like Rob said my allergies have been hell this month uh I'm actually don't know if I want to wish for winter yet because I don't like the cold but hey at least my allergies will get better at some point so so this episode well first in our prior episode I want to I just want to like poke you a little bit if you weren't doing a couple episodes back if you haven't tried the seven days of pomodoros one Pomodoro a day I highly recommend it it worked out very well for me there's a lot of cool stuff I learned while doing that also if you have not looked at an automation if you've not spent some time trying to figure out where you can automate your life and make some improvements highly recommend that you take a look at that and do that because and do it repeatedly do it for a week do it for the next week do it for the next week because you will find that your life will get much easier as you dive into four five six seven a dozen new automations that you've built for those things that you used to do and it used to drive you nuts this episode we're going to look at coding skills now you're probably saying this is building better developers even if it is habits this season it's building better developers I'm a developer I know how to code I code every day yes you do but you don't learn new ways to code every day you don't necessarily look at what's out there what are some new best practices what are some new versions what are some of the things that now that you're in version two of your environment as opposed to version one now that version two is available there may be some improvements that allow you to take things you used to do in version one and do them better in version two now it could be that they still work which is very often the case Java I'm looking at you stuff works forever it's like it can be deprecated for version after version after version so the stuff you used to do still works but it is not the best or the most efficient way to do it it also may not be the best standard or practice that's being used right now so what what I want to talk about is how do we find ways to to poke ourselves to become better at developing as a developer on a regular basis now of course daily habits are a great way to do it so one of the things we can do is we can go out and we can look at uh one of things do is we can we can read blogs or listen to podcasts or things like that and and sort of keep an eye on you know keep an ear out for where is there something new uh one of the things we used to do in our Mentor classes way back is it was especially when it work met every week one of the things was we had a nugget everybody basically would not every time but the idea was everybody would contribute a nugget some thing that they ran into that week a new site a new tool a new way to use a tool those kinds of things if you would listened if you were following through those you would have gotten some of that there are a lot of podcasts out there that are in that that sense where they have regular tools that they will recommend they have these things that they bring up they have topics that they cover that will at least if they don't go into it give you ideas of what are some things I should be looking at what are some things that I'm like oh I don't know that I know that that well maybe I should spend some time on it so it could be reading a Blog article it could be listening to a specific podcast or listening to a podcast it could be going out to the vendor site for whatever that tool is or those tools are that you use and just keep an eye out for like news going on listening uh hang out in like forums and and discussions in community groups user groups even that are related to those Technologies one of the things I want to I want to throw out there that I stumbled across is place called codes signal.com c d s n.com I actually was introduced to it because they have a pretty cool technology interviewing vetting type of service they provide where it's basically it is it is a you know web-based development environment they give you programming environment actually is that they give you a a programming problem and then you have an interpreter there basically you have a place which you can write your code and you have a button so you can run your code and see the output so it is its own little self-contained ID environment uh ID and it it also has a lot of different programming languages that it supports as part of that so if you're coming in and doing a a c interview they can go out there your the interviewer can go out there and say hey take a look at this you know they can assign to you give you like a you know one week to get this done you go out you fill out the problem you solve it you you know promote it out to them or whatever you publish it out to them great the other thing this site does is that they have a way as a developer that you can learn technology they have tutorial classes that utilize the same IDE and we'll walk through a wide variety of topics now the nice thing about something like this and this is along the same lines in a sense of like your udies and your LinkedIn education and some of those kinds of places that are out there is that if you have one of these uh subscriptions or if you have if you're utilizing one of these tutorial training sites you can go out and a lot of times very regularly for a low cost or maybe even free look at classes take a class of some sort now you don't have to do it all in a day you can take this and you can do it pecem where you're just like I'm going to take a class on X whatever that is for example I was like you know what I want to spend a little more time playing around with machine learning and data analytics so I found a little series it was talking about machine learning and data analytics and using Python and some things like that I'm like oh this is a fun little thing I'm going to play around with this for a while is just sort of see what I know and a better yet what don't I know where are there gaps what are the things that I can go in and since I'm doing it in a formal setting there may be things that now I'm going to be introduced to that I never had to deal with because I was never asked that question so I didn't have to go research it something like that is a great way to spend 15 minutes a day or you know or even five or 10 minutes a day doing this thing especially in it especially if it's directed like a tutorial or training or something of you know online training those kinds of things because it helps you keep some of those skills maybe fresh and also can teach you some new stuff along the way it will help you be a better developer because now you're not just relying on your developer skills from yesterday it is literally you going into each day saying I'm going to learn something new now you can do this in a lot of areas but I think the ones that are the most danger to us are things like this where it's we do it every day and so it is easy for us into fall into the trap to say that I'm learning something new every day because I do this every day but there is there is a reason people refer to a developer that has one year of experience 10 times being different from a developer that has 10 years of experience we all know that there's a way for us to get into a rut where we're solving the same problems the same way using the same tools day in and day out and we could almost flash back to a prior episode automate the stuff that we did so those are a couple of key areas that I want to just touch on but now I'm going to let Michael sort of you know give me your feedback and then maybe some of the areas that you want to talk about and how how do you become a better developer looking specifically those developer skills so I'll start out with kind of some of the coding standards and best practices so one of the things as developers like Rob said we could get into that run of doing the same thing again and again and again over time and what I like to do is especially flashback a couple episodes ago is do a kitchen sync app and what I do with that is it's the kitchen sync app isn't just for the the actual application the the functionality of the application I actually use the kitchen SYNC apps for multiple purposes yes it is to help give me a code template kind of here's how I I did something here's best practice but what I also like using the kitchen sync apps for are things like Rob mentioned are using idees so one of the biggest things as a developer that I've seen over the years again and again is especially uh developers coming out of college they're taught one particular framework or one particular tool like uh intellig visual code or just text editors and compilers when they get into the business World they again learn whatever that business is using the problem is the next company you go work for may not use those tools so you need to constantly learn what else is out there you know diverse your skills so to speak in multiple platforms not just necessarily languages but the tools that you use so if you use Eclipse maybe check out intellig load that uh kitchen sync app see if you can get it to work see where all the debuggers are all the compilers how do you configure it load it again into like visual code or some different idees play around with that that so if you actually did the challenge for the kitchen scap you've already got this tool so now just start going out and just you know this is an idea you can go play with different uh idees the other thing that is challenging a and like Rob mentioned you know Java's a great example of this you know Java 8 for a lot of people is still the only version of java that's out there it that's all they know that's they've been doing for what almost 20 years now the thing is that we're now in Java 22 Java changed their release program so now there's new versions of the language coming out every six months every other year and there are new changes more enhancements more security features coming out with every iteration it behooves you to keep track of where it is that the language that you're using is going not just best practices but what are the new tools and libraries being introduced what are being deprecated you know if a security file is deprecated you probably need to not just deprecate it but immediately figure out what it is that it's being replaced with because that is potentially a security hole in your application you don't want to open up your systems to hackers so this is just kind of another little thing about improving your core skills that is a life benefit to protect yourself and your software the other thing I kind of wanted to touch on again was that coding standards and best practices so the other cool thing about that kitchen sync app is you know if you try to do best practices so you write one way that you think is best practice today well six months from now pull it back up okay what has changed or as you have been working did you do something different that is now a better practice that you need to update your kitchen syn app or keep track of so as you're going through the process of your daily jobs if you see something that is new or you don't quite understand take 15 20 minutes go look it up go Google it or write it down and look it up tomorrow one of the key things that personally I try to do every single day and this is a habit I've been doing for many years now is every single day I want to learn one thing new that I did not know yesterday I don't care if it's a language I don't care if it's best practice but I always start out by looking at what it is that I'm doing what is there that I can add improve or learn to help my current situation or to get me to that next project that next step in my career so these core skills are not just about improving your technology skills but they can also benefit your coding but they can improve your kind of Step through your progress to that next goal in your career so our our challenge for this week ahead is like Michael just alluded to pick something new every day you're going to learn something new every day now the challenge for this I think in order to make it easier to step into this habit is on the first day or actually probably before you get into the first day even spend a little bit of extra time in that first day and pick something that you need to learn more about doesn't matter what it is it could be for example I want to learn about the latest version of the language that's out there that I'm using right now or I want to learn more about the underlying mechanics of a template of a framework that I'm using for example like I maybe I used hibernate all the time I'm going to spend some time learning what SQL is and how it would do the things that the tool does for me or look at what is your language dour your language of choice maybe even right now the ones you're in the most and just spend time looking at Best Practices not necessarily although it could be very useful if your company has if your organization has coding standards is make sure that you're going back and taking a look at those coding standards spend a little time every day but also like why would that matter why would that be useful is get a little bit more into it so you're not just oh this is why we do this is what we do but so you have a little bit of an idea of why do we do that do that every day and just like Mark out time 10 to 15 minutes every day for the next week that you your goal is I'm going to learn a little bit more and give yourself a in this case it's say give yourself a sort of a stretch goal of the week and say all right I want to learn for example I'm going to learn more about the ne the current version of this language so what you can do is each day say hey I'm going to go out to maybe the vendor site and they've got a whole bunch of information but I'm going to read I'm going to take a look at what is what are the what's the features that got added in this version I'm going to look at maybe uh go search for some articles on how does this change from the prior version or what are some benefits I can take advantage of in the new version maybe you go search maybe part of this you go search for a podcast or two that you're going to listen to now for a while that are based on they talk about that topic or that's what their focus is or a a site where you're going to read daily blogs or something along those lines or maybe you're just going to like a tech crunch or one of those kinds of I'm assuming that still exists you're going to one of those places and you're just gonna that's going to be your search topic and you're just going to start your day and spend that 10 to 15 minutes reading an article on that topic what is the latest article on that topic do that every day and then when you get to the end of the week hopefully you'll able to look back and say wow I've really progressed in what I know about that topic whatever that chosen topic is now this again I really would I I think it's really important for you to do this in the development world now it doesn't have to be exactly the development stuff you're working on so if you're a let's say you're a middle tier developer maybe what you do is you're going to go spend the next week and I just want to have I'm going to have seven questions I'm going to answer of how do I do this in HTML and JavaScript or how do I do this using the in a graphical environment that is the one that is the front end to the work that I do if you're a front-end developer maybe it is how do I how do I create an API how do I create an API call or how do I uh create a database or how do I you know how do I actually work with a dat database other than through the the means that you have right now these are all great ways asking those questions of like how does this actually work why does it work those kinds of things are going to help you get a deeper knowledge of what you use and it's actually I think a lot of times going to make you utilize that better because now you understand the why a little bit more and you're not just using it blindly you actually understand why you're doing this and it will help you moving forward that being said it's time for us to wrap this one up so if you have any questions comments feedback in particularly on the challenges that we've given you shoot us an email at info developer.com you can also leave us contacts we've got comments and we have a contact form on developer.com you can leave comments and feedback out on YouTube at the developer Channel send us stuff on X at developer we have a Facebook page the developer page is out there I think we do I'm forget sure we have one out in LinkedIn or develop or Facebook I am not our social media person so check around search develop Andor and if you find it great let me know it may be a site that we forgot we had maybe not that bad but that being said we love your feedback love to hear from you we' love to know where we can help you be better so as always go out there and have yourself a great day a great week and we will talk to you next time bonus material this time I wrote it down so I would not forget it one of the things that you can do that I think is really good in pushing yourself this way is create for yourself your own coding standards and best practices try to just sort of document what are the things that I do not me but you in my shoes you say to yourself what is it that I do on a regular as how do I name functions how do I name variables how do I format comments how do I what is sort of my mental template for comments when I commit code what is the what are the steps I typically take when I am using virsion control and how do I Branch stuff and when do I merge and when do I commit uh what is what are some standards I use when I'm writing a SQL query or what are some of the things I do to make sure my code is secure those kinds of standards and best practices is you build that document but then with each of those is question is this really a best practice or a good standard to have and maybe go do a little search for each of your either your areas or some of your specifics and and go Google that maybe ask like a chat GP or something like that or ask a CH a search engine and see what kind of information you get back because you will likely get some sort of conversation somewhere about that trust me go look at just naming standards camel case versus using underscores between words versus uh the Polish Hungarian notation and all that kind of stuff you will find a lot of conversation about that and you will find this is why we do and maybe it's this is why but this is what is typical for this language or this is what typical for this environment because those kinds of things are going to help you be a better developer because it's going to help you take your standards your habits and slide those in and conform those into what are the accept habits within that culture or that environment uh bonus material from you Mike so on top of what you just said there I want to just add one additional thing within fra within software languages look at the release notes of whatever language you use the most be it Java C python whatever one of the coolest things I've learned especially from java since they've really gotten into these iterative uh Cycles is they are constantly adding New Primitives new keywords new formatting tools to the language that makes our life so much better so if you're stuck like you you mentioned you know formatting SQL in Java the old way of formatting squel you had to do all these appenders it looked awful strings before were very cumbersome very hard to use now they have the python notation or some of the other notations where it's like three quotes there here's your SQL three quotes it doesn't reformat your code so your SQL is the uniform and format it little things like that that if you don't know could save you so much time and headache and make the code so much readable these are just little things that if you don't know you don't know but take this challenge seriously and you might learn these things and you might be like holy crap I didn't know that wow this is so much fun this can be a journey a learning experience and a good habit to pick up but it can also be fun 100% agree on on all of those areas and that is a that is an excellent uh piece of of bonus material there is it's like it really between the the idees and languages and some of those things and all the automation tools out there it is very helpful to learn spend some time and learn what is out there to help you be better and it is very easy for you to get in that rut and not realize that there are tools that there are things that you do manually that you don't have to do it all I will I will briefly refer to there is a developer I worked with this is many years ago he may have grown out of this habit but it wasn't so long ago that his world was VI he wrote all his code in VI he had all sorts of headaches dealing with everybody else because he had everything had to be a specific format and when it got reformatted he had to go in and write these basically do these macros to go reformat a bunch of stuff and he got all sorts of ticked off because he had to go reformat stuff whereas all the rest of us used this really cool ID called Eclipse that would just autof format stuff for us so we didn't care we could just go one button and it's all formatted and we can read it well and all that kind of stuff and so we had an IDE a full integrated development environment that did all of this stuff for us and he insisted because that was what he knew that he was going to stick with the vi world and he said he would claim he would swear up and down that he was easily as productive if not more productive than any other developer that was using an an IDE I would call BS on that and did several times and said look dude try the new tools so let's not be leites let's make sure that we're keeping up with some of the new tools out there and that we're finding ways to leverage them and if you don't like it if it goes against your style or something like that that's okay but at least know it's out there and this allows you to have an educated uh response to that and it's like I like for example certain IDs maybe I like this older ID or this less popular ID because it gives me a and C because I tried this other more popular ID and it didn't work for me and so that's okay but try it you might like it you might not but at least then you have a reason why you didn't don't get out there and try us and not like us if you don't if you try us and you don't like us you got problems like I'm talking serious mental problems okay maybe not like that but I would love for you guys to give us some comments particularly those of you that are out here in the um out in the the video space out in the YouTube space because you guys see this a little different you get some extra information there's some things that we do that are little bonus as this with each of our episodes so I would love to hear back from you guys if it's simple things like yeah maybe it is it's like rob you should grow a beard Michael you should shave your face Rob wear a different hat whatever it is those things maybe we're going to take those with the grain of all but those also are things that we're going to incorporate in some way form or fashion if you're like you know you guys look so much better if you had big white wigs on we'll consider that I'm not GNA say we're gonna go with it but hey we are open to suggestions and we'd love to hear from you guys we'd love to get feedback so that we can make sure we're producing something that helps you that we have value for the time that you invest and I want to just as always there always thankful for it but I want to just pause for a second and thank you guys for the time that you spend for what you have invested in listening to us and sharing with us on this journey to become better developers and to build better habits I follow this up with go build better habits take these challenges and don't just like go oh yeah that was a great idea actually utilize it because these will help some of them won't I I will give you that right now there going to be some things you're like that just didn't really work for me but some some of them will and those that do will be the kinds of things that will help you become a better developer because and I say that because Michael and I have done both of this we've tried lots and lots of stuff over the years and there's some stuff that we explicitly are like that doesn't work for me some works for me doesn't work for him and vice versa but then there's also things we like this is why we keep doing this kind of stuff because we do stumble across things that help us immensely and help take us to that next level and that's what we want for you we want the entire developer community to continue to grow and to continue to take those steps forward that being said it's time for us to go out there and grow and take our steps and do all of those things moving forward we will see you next time back with more we're just getting started in the seasons we've got a lot ahead of us lots of good habits to build so go out there build a couple habits have yourself a great day [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
and there we go we are back all right
I want to talk about improving your
coding skills uh I know this is going to
be one of those it's going to be sort of
a a challenge
but um I think everybody needs to do it
I want to grab a site real quick to make
sure I'm actually looking at the right
site when I do this that is not it
is that the
one yes it is let's see is there a
pricing on this while I'm sitting
there there we go
okay so let's talk about I think this
that's what it's going to be and it'll
be a uh this one actually I started for
myself to build a habit a while back was
um to spend just like I I've put down I
put on my schedule 15 minutes minutes a
day to go back and it's just focused on
do code better something like that it's
not writing code necessarily as much as
it is exploring like researching how do
I do that what are best practices and
and things of that nature and so um I
think that's where I want to go because
it's actually turned out to be really
interesting uh it's been a great way for
me to actually a great way for me to add
a couple of a sense add a couple skills
or keep some skills from getting too
rusty because I'm going to recommend a
tool as part of this
uh that I think actually that may end up
being the U the actual challenge uh it's
a place called Cod signal.com
um and I'll tell a little bit story
about how I ran into that uh but I think
that'll be a good one for us uh any
questions or anything because think
talked about any questions before we
dive into it uh so we're I just want to
make sure I stay in the lane of this
discussion so we're discussing like
coding skills specifically like coding
standards
sdks best practices stay away from soft
skills interviews business skills keep
it to the Cod 100% yeah because this is
stuff that like we do all the time and
it's easy for us to say hey we do it all
the time and we're fine at it and then
we're not our Co our skills are aged and
out you know we don't want to be that
person that was the Cobalt programmer
back you know that had been writing code
for 40 years and then suddenly new
languages showed up and they were like
oh no I'm not going to do that I can't
handle that stuff you know we want to be
constant L learning and growing three
two one well hello and welcome back we
are continuing our season where we are
building better habits but you may say
that's not what I saw that's right you
saw building better developers developer
newer that's what we are we're a podcast
a website videos all that kind of
goodness because we are working towards
building better developers this season
how do we take these developers that
we're talking to yes that means you and
build habits how do we walk through
habits how have we done it how do we
recommend other people do it and as a
community how do we work to make
ourselves better with each of these
episodes there is going to be homework
there's going to be an action item at
the end there's going to be a we'll call
it a challenge if that helps if it helps
us gamify it then so be it that's what
we're looking for now before we get into
it my name is Rob Broadhead I am one of
the founders of developing or building
better developers also a founder of RB
Consulting where we really focus on
helping companies use technology better
A lot of time if your company's in a
situation where they're like what do I
really have and how much do we use it
that's a perfect time for us to step in
and say let us help you with that let's
look at what is that you have what is
the the technology that you have what is
the sprawl maybe that you have of all
these applications and all these users
and all these different things they use
and how do we find ways to clean that
stuff up through integration simp
ification automation find ways to make
you leverage that better help you
leverage that better and also cut out
the crap that you don't need remove the
duplicate kinds of applications and
features and functions and things like
that streamline stuff so that you go
from being like that big ugly Homer
Simpson car that's got everything in the
world on it to like a you know an F1
racer that is stripped down to doing the
thing that it does
best good things and bad things as a
good thing uh I have gone through this
week and have Dove I've dived into one
of these kinds of
projects and the good thing was it took
a while because it's a big company it's
like it seems small but you guys if
you're a developer you know I finally
got access to code repository so I can
actually look at code I finally got I
was able to do see a bunch of different
stuff but I finally now have the
permission so I can actually go look at
the code and instead of guessing my way
into stuff and saying do you do this did
you ever think of that do you try this
how is this set up I can actually go
look at it and say hey you did that
great or hey why don't you take a look
at and do it better bad
thing uh as a Bad Thing gosh now I don't
I don't have a I had a whole lot of bad
stuff last time I was thinking about it
and this time I'm trying to think of bad
things
um a bad thing is it is getting towards
the the end of the month and the the
fall times that we have here
and the back and forth of the weather
can make it very difficult for those of
us that have allergies and sinuses and
things like that and so my bad thing
which is sort of combined with good
yesterday I think I went through an
entire box of Kleenex because I was just
blowing my nose blowing my nose blowing
my nose blowing my nose so the good
thing is I had extra boxes of Kleenex
the bad thing is I had to utilize an
entire box I'm pretty sure yesterday
someone who actually is very sympatico
with that whole thing on the other side
going to introduce himself Michael go
for it hey everyone my name is Michael M
I'm one of the co-founders of develop
prur building better developers I'm also
the founder of Envision QA if you are a
business clinician small Independent
Business looking for help with your
software you're it's either custom
software it's not working you need help
supporting it where your goto
company if you have multiple tools that
you're paying for that don't just quite
cut it we will also help you by building
or assessing what you have identifying
areas of improvement and we can help
kind of guide you on the path to getting
the right tools for what you need be it
custom or purchased good thing bad thing
uh good thing we're finally getting rain
it has been weeks since we've had rain
here and oh my God it is like a dust
bowl uh so good thing bad thing because
of the Dust Bowl like Rob said my
allergies have been hell this month uh
I'm
actually don't know if I want to wish
for winter yet because I don't like the
cold but hey at least my allergies will
get better at some point
so so this episode well first in our
prior episode I want to I just want to
like poke you a little bit if you
weren't doing a couple episodes back if
you haven't tried the seven days of
pomodoros one Pomodoro a day I highly
recommend it it worked out very well for
me there's a lot of cool stuff I learned
while doing that
also if you have not looked at an
automation if you've not spent some time
trying to figure out where you can
automate your life and make some
improvements highly recommend that you
take a look at that and do that because
and do it repeatedly do it for a week do
it for the next week do it for the next
week because you will find that your
life will get much easier as you dive
into four five six seven a dozen new
automations that you've built for those
things that you used to do and it used
to drive you nuts this episode we're
going to look at coding skills now
you're probably saying this is building
better developers even if it is habits
this season it's building better
developers I'm a developer I know how to
code I code every day yes you do but you
don't learn new ways to code every day
you don't necessarily look at what's out
there what are some new best practices
what are some new versions what are some
of the things that now that you're in
version two of your environment as
opposed to version one now that version
two is available there may be some
improvements that allow you to take
things you used to do in version one and
do them better in version two now it
could be that they still work which is
very often the case Java I'm looking at
you stuff works forever it's like it can
be deprecated for version after version
after version so the stuff you used to
do still works but it is not the best or
the most efficient way to do it it also
may not be the best standard or practice
that's being used right now so what what
I want to talk about is how do we find
ways to to poke ourselves to become
better at developing as a developer on a
regular basis now of course daily habits
are a great way to do it so one of the
things we can do is we can go out and we
can look at uh one of things do is we
can we can read blogs or listen to
podcasts or things like that and and
sort of keep an eye on you know keep an
ear out for where is there something new
uh one of the things we used to do in
our Mentor classes way back is it was
especially when it work met every week
one of the things was we had a nugget
everybody basically would not every time
but the idea was everybody would
contribute a nugget some thing that they
ran into that week a new site a new tool
a new way to use a tool those kinds of
things if you would listened if you were
following through those you would have
gotten some of that there are a lot of
podcasts out there that are in that that
sense where they have regular tools that
they will recommend they have these
things that they bring up they have
topics that they cover that will at
least if they don't go into it give you
ideas of what are some things I should
be looking at what are some things that
I'm like oh I don't know that I know
that that well maybe I should spend some
time on it so it could be reading a Blog
article it could be listening to a
specific podcast or listening to a
podcast it could be going out to the
vendor site for whatever that tool is or
those tools are that you use and just
keep an eye out for like news going on
listening uh hang out in like forums and
and discussions in community groups user
groups even that are related to those
Technologies one of the things I want to
I want to throw out there that I
stumbled across is place called codes
signal.com c d s
n.com I actually was introduced to it
because they have a pretty cool
technology interviewing vetting type of
service they provide where it's
basically it is it is a you know
web-based development environment they
give you programming environment
actually is that they give you a a
programming problem and then you have an
interpreter there basically you have a
place which you can write your code and
you have a button so you can run your
code and see the
output so it is its own little
self-contained ID environment uh ID and
it it also has a lot of different
programming languages that it supports
as part of that so if you're coming in
and doing a a c interview they can go
out there your the interviewer can go
out there and say hey take a look at
this you know they can assign to you
give you like a you know one week to get
this done you go out you fill out the
problem you solve it you you know
promote it out to them or whatever you
publish it out to them great the other
thing this site does is that they have a
way as a developer that you can learn
technology they have tutorial classes
that utilize the same IDE and we'll walk
through a wide variety of topics now the
nice thing about something like this and
this is along the same lines in a sense
of like your udies and your LinkedIn
education and some of those kinds of
places that are out there is that if you
have one of these uh subscriptions or if
you have if you're utilizing one of
these tutorial training sites you can go
out and a lot of times very regularly
for a low cost or maybe even free look
at classes take a class of some sort now
you don't have to do it all in a day you
can take this and you can do it pecem
where you're just like I'm going to take
a class on X whatever that is for
example I was like you know what I want
to spend a little more time playing
around with machine learning and data
analytics so I found a little series it
was talking about machine learning and
data analytics and using Python and some
things like that I'm like oh this is a
fun little thing I'm going to play
around with this for a while is just
sort of see what I know and a better yet
what don't I know where are there gaps
what are the things that I can go in and
since I'm doing it in a formal setting
there may be things that now I'm going
to be introduced to that I never had to
deal with because I was never asked that
question so I didn't have to go research
it something like that is a great way to
spend 15 minutes a day or you know or
even five or 10 minutes a day doing this
thing especially in it especially if
it's directed like a tutorial or
training or something of you know online
training those kinds of things because
it helps you
keep some of those skills maybe
fresh and also can teach you some new
stuff along the way it will help you be
a better developer because now you're
not just relying on your developer
skills from yesterday it is literally
you going into each day saying I'm going
to learn something new now you can do
this in a lot of areas but I think the
ones that are the most danger to us are
things like this where it's we do it
every day and so it is easy for us into
fall into the trap to say that I'm
learning something new every day because
I do this every day but there is there
is a reason people refer to a developer
that has one year of experience 10 times
being different from a developer that
has 10 years of experience we all know
that there's a way for us to get into a
rut where we're solving the same
problems the same way using the same
tools day in and day out and we could
almost flash back to a prior episode
automate the stuff that we did so those
are a couple of key areas that I want to
just touch on but now I'm going to let
Michael sort of you know give me your
feedback and then maybe some of the
areas that you want to talk about and
how how do you become a better developer
looking specifically those developer
skills so I'll start out with kind of
some of the coding standards and best
practices so one of the things as
developers like Rob said we could get
into that run of doing the same thing
again and again and again over time and
what I like to do is especially
flashback a couple episodes ago is do a
kitchen sync app and what I do with that
is it's the kitchen sync app isn't just
for the the actual application the the
functionality of the application I
actually use the kitchen SYNC apps for
multiple purposes yes it is to help give
me a code template kind of here's how I
I did something here's best practice but
what I also like using the kitchen sync
apps for are things like Rob mentioned
are using idees so one of the biggest
things as a developer that I've seen
over the years again and again is
especially uh developers coming out of
college they're taught one particular
framework or one particular tool like uh
intellig visual code or just text
editors and compilers when they get into
the business World they again learn
whatever that business is using the
problem is the next company you go work
for may not use those tools so you need
to constantly learn what else is out
there you know diverse your skills so to
speak in multiple platforms not just
necessarily languages but the tools that
you use so if you use Eclipse maybe
check out intellig load that uh kitchen
sync app see if you can get it to work
see where all the debuggers are all the
compilers how do you configure it load
it again into like visual code or some
different idees play around with that
that so if you actually did the
challenge for the kitchen scap you've
already got this tool so now just start
going out and just you know this is an
idea you can go play with different uh
idees the other thing that is
challenging a and like Rob mentioned you
know Java's a great example of this you
know Java 8 for a lot of people is still
the only version of java that's out
there it that's all they know that's
they've been doing for what almost 20
years now the thing is that we're now in
Java
22 Java changed their release program so
now there's new versions of the language
coming out every six months every other
year and there are new changes more
enhancements more security features
coming out with every iteration it
behooves you to keep track of where it
is that the language that you're using
is going not just best practices but
what are the new tools and libraries
being introduced what are being
deprecated you know if a security file
is deprecated you probably need to not
just deprecate it but immediately figure
out what it is that it's being replaced
with because that is potentially a
security hole in your application you
don't want to open up your systems to
hackers so this is just kind of another
little thing about improving your core
skills that is a life benefit to protect
yourself and your software the other
thing I kind of wanted to touch on again
was that coding standards and best
practices so the other cool thing about
that kitchen sync app is you know if you
try to do best practices so you write
one way that you think is best practice
today well six months from now pull it
back up okay what has changed or as you
have been working did you do something
different that is now a better practice
that you need to update your kitchen syn
app or keep track of
so as you're going through the process
of your daily jobs if you see something
that is new or you don't quite
understand take 15 20 minutes go look it
up go Google it or write it down and
look it up tomorrow one of the key
things that personally I try to do every
single day and this is a habit I've been
doing for many years now is every single
day I want to learn one thing new that I
did not know yesterday I don't care if
it's a language I don't care if it's
best practice but I always start out by
looking at what it is that I'm doing
what is there that I can add improve or
learn to help my current situation or to
get me to that next project that next
step in my career so these core skills
are not just about improving your
technology skills but they can also
benefit your coding but they can improve
your kind of Step through your progress
to that next goal in your
career so our our challenge for this
week ahead is like Michael just alluded
to pick something new every day you're
going to learn something new every day
now the challenge for this I think in
order to make it easier to step into
this habit is on the first day or
actually probably before you get into
the first day even spend a little bit of
extra time in that first day and pick
something that you need to learn more
about doesn't matter what it is it could
be for example I want to learn about the
latest version of the language that's
out there that I'm using right now or I
want to learn more about the underlying
mechanics of a template of a framework
that I'm using for example like I maybe
I used hibernate all the time I'm going
to spend some time learning what SQL is
and how it would do the things that the
tool does for
me or look at what is your language dour
your language of choice maybe even right
now the ones you're in the most and just
spend time looking at Best Practices not
necessarily although it could be very
useful if your company has if your
organization has coding standards is
make sure that you're going back and
taking a look at those coding standards
spend a little time every day but also
like
why would that matter why would that be
useful is get a little bit more into it
so you're not just oh this is why we do
this is what we do but so you have a
little bit of an idea of why do we do
that do that every day and just like
Mark out time 10 to 15 minutes every day
for the next week that you your goal is
I'm going to learn a little bit more and
give yourself a in this case it's say
give yourself a sort of a stretch goal
of the week and say all right I want to
learn for example I'm going to learn
more about the ne the current version of
this language so what you can do is each
day say hey I'm going to go out to maybe
the vendor site and they've got a whole
bunch of information but I'm going to
read I'm going to take a look at what is
what are the what's the features that
got added in this version I'm going to
look at maybe uh go search for some
articles on how does this change from
the prior version or what are some
benefits I can take advantage of in the
new version maybe you go search maybe
part of this you go search for a podcast
or two that you're going to listen to
now for a while that are based on they
talk about that topic or that's what
their focus is or a a site where you're
going to read daily blogs or something
along those lines or maybe you're just
going to like a tech crunch or one of
those kinds of I'm assuming that still
exists you're going to one of those
places and you're just gonna that's
going to be your search topic and you're
just going to start your day and spend
that 10 to 15 minutes reading an article
on that topic what is the latest article
on that topic do that every day and then
when you get to the end of the week
hopefully you'll able to look back and
say wow I've really progressed in what I
know about that topic whatever that
chosen topic is now this
again I really would I I think it's
really important for you to do this in
the development world now it doesn't
have to be exactly the development stuff
you're working on so if you're a let's
say you're a middle tier developer maybe
what you do is you're going to go spend
the next week and I just want to have
I'm going to have seven questions I'm
going to answer of how do I do this in
HTML and JavaScript or how do I do this
using the in a graphical environment
that is the one that is the front end to
the work that I do if you're a front-end
developer maybe it is how do I how do I
create an API how do I create an API
call or how do I uh create a database or
how do I you know how do I actually work
with a dat database other than through
the the means that you have right now
these are all great ways asking those
questions of like how does this actually
work why does it work those kinds of
things are going to help you get a
deeper knowledge of what you use and
it's actually I think a lot of times
going to make you utilize that better
because now you understand the why a
little bit more and you're not just
using it blindly you actually understand
why you're doing this and it will help
you moving forward
that being said it's time for us to wrap
this one up so if you have any questions
comments feedback in particularly on the
challenges that we've given you shoot us
an email at info developer.com you can
also leave us contacts we've got
comments and we have a contact form on
developer.com you can leave comments and
feedback out on YouTube at the developer
Channel send us stuff on X at developer
we have a Facebook page the developer
page is out there I think we do I'm
forget sure we have one out in LinkedIn
or develop or
Facebook I am not our social media
person so check around search develop
Andor and if you find it great let me
know it may be a site that we forgot we
had maybe not that bad but that being
said we love your feedback love to hear
from you we' love to know where we can
help you be better so as always go out
there and have yourself a great day a
great week and we will talk to you next
time bonus material this time I wrote it
down so I would not forget it one of the
things that you can do that I think is
really good in pushing yourself this way
is create for yourself your own coding
standards and best practices try to just
sort of document what are the things
that I do not me but you in my shoes you
say to yourself what is it that I do on
a regular as how do I name functions how
do I name variables how do I format
comments how do I what is sort of my
mental template for comments when I
commit code what is the what are the
steps I typically take when I am using
virsion control and how do I Branch
stuff and when do I merge and when do I
commit uh what is what are some
standards I use when I'm writing a SQL
query or what are some of the things I
do to make sure my code is secure those
kinds of standards and best practices is
you build that document but then with
each of those is question is this really
a best practice or a good standard to
have and maybe go do a little search for
each of your either your areas or some
of your specifics and and go Google that
maybe ask like a chat GP or something
like that or ask a CH a search engine
and see what kind of information you get
back because you will likely get some
sort of conversation somewhere about
that trust me go look at just naming
standards camel case versus using
underscores between words versus uh the
Polish Hungarian notation and all that
kind of stuff you will find a lot of
conversation about that and you will
find this is why we do and maybe it's
this is why but this is what is typical
for this language or this is what
typical for this environment because
those kinds of things are going to help
you be a better developer because it's
going to help you take your standards
your habits and slide those in and
conform those into what are the accept
habits within that culture or that
environment uh bonus material from you
Mike so on top of what you just said
there I want to just add one additional
thing within fra within software
languages look at the release notes of
whatever language you use the most be it
Java C python whatever one of the
coolest things I've learned especially
from java since they've really gotten
into these iterative uh Cycles is they
are constantly adding New Primitives new
keywords new formatting tools to the
language that makes our life so much
better so if you're stuck like you you
mentioned you know formatting SQL in
Java the old way of formatting squel you
had to do all these appenders it looked
awful strings before were very
cumbersome very hard to use now they
have the python notation or some of the
other notations where it's like three
quotes there here's your SQL three
quotes it doesn't reformat your code so
your SQL is the uniform and format it
little things like that that if you
don't
know could save you so much time and
headache and make the code so much
readable these are just little things
that if you don't know you don't know
but take this challenge seriously and
you might learn these things and you
might be like holy crap I didn't know
that wow this is so much fun this can be
a journey a learning experience and a
good habit to pick up but it can also be
fun 100% agree on on all of those areas
and that is a that is an excellent uh
piece of of bonus material there is it's
like it really between the the idees and
languages and some of those things and
all the automation tools out there it is
very helpful to learn spend some time
and learn what is out there to help you
be better and it is very easy for you to
get in that rut and not realize that
there are tools that there are things
that you do manually that you don't have
to do it all I will I will briefly refer
to there is a developer I worked with
this is many years ago he may have grown
out of this habit but it wasn't so long
ago that his world was VI he wrote all
his code in VI he had all sorts of
headaches dealing with everybody else
because he had everything had to be a
specific format and when it got
reformatted he had to go in and write
these basically do these macros to go
reformat a bunch of stuff and he got all
sorts of ticked off because he had to go
reformat stuff whereas all the rest of
us used this really cool ID called
Eclipse that would just autof format
stuff for us so we didn't care we could
just go one button and it's all
formatted and we can read it well and
all that kind of stuff and so we had an
IDE a full integrated development
environment that did all of this stuff
for us and he insisted because that was
what he knew that he was going to stick
with the vi
world and he said he would claim he
would swear up and down that he was
easily as productive if not more
productive than any other developer that
was using an an IDE I would call BS on
that and did several times and said look
dude try the new tools so let's not be
leites let's make sure that we're
keeping up with some of the new tools
out there and that we're finding ways to
leverage them and if you don't like it
if it goes against your style or
something like that that's okay but at
least know it's out there and this
allows you to have an educated uh
response to that and it's like I like
for example certain IDs maybe I like
this older ID or this less popular ID
because it gives me a and C because I
tried this other more popular ID and it
didn't work for me and so that's okay
but try it you might like it you might
not but at least then you have a reason
why you
didn't don't get out there and try us
and not like us if you don't if you try
us and you don't like us you got
problems like I'm talking serious mental
problems okay maybe not like that but I
would love for you guys to give us some
comments particularly those of you that
are out here in the um out in the the
video space out in the YouTube space
because you guys see this a little
different you get some extra information
there's some things that we do that are
little bonus as this with each of our
episodes so I would love to hear back
from you guys if it's simple things like
yeah maybe it is it's like rob you
should grow a beard Michael you should
shave your face Rob wear a different hat
whatever it is those things maybe we're
going to take those with the grain of
all but those also are things that we're
going to incorporate in some way form or
fashion if you're like you know you guys
look so much better if you had big white
wigs on we'll consider that I'm not GNA
say we're gonna go with it but hey we
are open to suggestions and we'd love to
hear from you guys we'd love to get
feedback so that we can make sure we're
producing something that helps you that
we have value for the time that you
invest and I want to just as always
there always thankful for it but I want
to just pause for a second and thank you
guys for the time that you spend for
what you have invested in listening to
us and sharing with us on this journey
to become better developers and to build
better
habits I follow this up with go build
better habits take these challenges and
don't just like go oh yeah that was a
great idea actually utilize it because
these will help some of them won't I I
will give you that right now there going
to be some things you're like that just
didn't really work for me but some some
of them will and those that do will be
the kinds of things that will help you
become a better developer because and I
say that because Michael and I have done
both of this we've tried lots and lots
of stuff over the years and there's some
stuff that we explicitly are like that
doesn't work for me some works for me
doesn't work for him and vice versa but
then there's also things we like this is
why we keep doing this kind of stuff
because we do stumble across things that
help us immensely and help take us to
that next level and that's what we want
for you we want the entire developer
community to continue to grow and to
continue to take those steps forward
that being said it's time for us to go
out there and grow and take our steps
and do all of those things moving
forward we will see you next time back
with more we're just getting started in
the seasons we've got a lot ahead of us
lots of good habits to build so go out
there build a couple habits have
yourself a great day
[Music]