Re:Ask HN: How do you know if you're a good dev or not?
by adolgert on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @11:41PM
(#9816724)
I'm happy to recount that I solved a problem by recognizing exactly what kind of parser was needed, but there was also that time Nate took a month of vacation, and I'd only written 30 useful lines of code for his project when he returned. Development is a creative process and therefore a mess of too much effort and too much ego. So I count projects and times the client was happy, or we got hacked the first day of deployment, or our work won the next grant.
But try this: Find someone friendly and interested and buy them a beer or an Amazon gift card or a snazzy keyboard in return for reviewing some of your code. Learn and get socialized, like taking your pup to the dog park. Make yourself acceptable enough to be hirable, and maybe that's enough.
Re:Ask HN: How do you know if you're a good dev or not?
by larrymcp on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @05:45PM
(#9815419)
At first I thought I was a great dev because my boss routinely praises me as an unqualified genius and savior of the company! And this is like 2 to 3 times a week.
But then I jump on HN and read all the "Signs you're a bad developer" articles and discover that I'm actually a two-bit mediocre hack.
Re:Ask HN: How do you know if you're a good dev or not?
by rokhayakebe on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @08:38PM
(#9816236)
I guess you would want to take praises from someone who knows what you do. If your boss is not a qualified engineer you may want to understand his/her praise as "you are a great problem solver," which would be 100% correct.
Re:Ask HN: How do you know if you're a good dev or not?
by MichaelCrawford on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @03:56PM
(#9814695)
When I show my mither my name in the about box.
I commonly find that what my clients want is not what I regard myself as ethically obligated to deliver, that is I give them what they need and not what they ask for.
But try this: Find someone friendly and interested and buy them a beer or an Amazon gift card or a snazzy keyboard in return for reviewing some of your code. Learn and get socialized, like taking your pup to the dog park. Make yourself acceptable enough to be hirable, and maybe that's enough.
Then my wife looks at me like I'm crazy and I get back to work.
But then I jump on HN and read all the "Signs you're a bad developer" articles and discover that I'm actually a two-bit mediocre hack.
I dunno.
How good? So good no one else has even thought of, and actually written, that software before.
I commonly find that what my clients want is not what I regard myself as ethically obligated to deliver, that is I give them what they need and not what they ask for.
https://xkcd.com/378/