Seven Habits of effective programmer (650 words). Review on Tips on Programming

Seven Habits of effective programmer(650 words)

Effective professionals are partly born and partly made. Please allow me to forget about the in-born skills for this writing.(That can be a topic of altogether different essay) .The major deciding factor of the professional success is the habits we develop over the professional life.

Habit is nature’s mechanism(effort!) of installing some kind of process in our lives. Just like excellence in processes lead to effectiveness, good habits ensure professional success.

I’m going to list down what matters most for the programming prowess. Knowing language, APIs, required algorithms, basic SDLC(Software Development Life Cycle) concepts, basic SDLC management and documentation well is assumed.

1. Reading and ripping programs(from different programmers):

Habit of analyzing and understanding other programmers(foreign) code is very essential. There is vast amount of code already present in open source software and libraries. If you can understand it, you can ‘smart’ customize it to suit your purpose. This habit comes very handy when you are integrating code with others.(It teaches us to appreciate benefits of documentation!)

Good Programmers are good reviewers.

By ripping the code, I mean you should develop habit of locating exact ‘problem points’ or crux of the code or design without getting bothered by code jumble.(This is real tough thing to do!)

2. Investigative, Clear, Concise Communication:

Investigative – Ability to question requirements/client to get clear picture about functionality.

Clear – Stating what you have understood, what are the deliverables and timeframe of deliverables, dependencies and constraints under which you’ll be working?

Concise – To the point and writing in lingo of the person you are communicating with.(Many programmers write function names, variable name to their managers. Nightmare for managers!).

I wish to extend this habit to encompass the documentation, design and emails you write during development.

3. Building Knowledge repository:

This habit saves you lot of work, but it takes time to build good knowledge repository. The more challenging thing is to mange this repository containing tutorials, articles, code snippets, Internet links, favorite and installables.

Subscribe to good technical forums, newsletter and open source software sites. Spend one/two hours a week increasing and maintaining your repository. If you do it religiously you can surprise your bosses, clients by giving huge work in no time!

4. Eye on business demand, testing, maintenance, post-delivery support:

This helps you generate high quality of work. By understanding business demand you can drive yourself to give some functional inputs(really valued in industry). By writing good test cases, you save lot of tense nights of support.

Testing and development should not be looked upon as separate phases. As you write lines of code, keep writing test cases.(Interplay!)

Writing maintainable, simple code is interesting and tough.(Knowledge of patterns and anti-patters and lot of common sense is required)

5. Using Productivity Tools/Aid

Use best available tools to work effectively. Try to use best IDE, test suits. Try to avoid ass-work. Write scripts instead whenever possible. For example of productivity tools- clipboard utilities that memorizes whatever copied -Very helpful for programming. Try out stuff; keep what suits your needs.

6. Teaching/Sharing/presenting

Teach in order to learn more! Share in order to gain more! Present so that you can sell the brilliant design or idea you have generated to your client/management! Presentations are the best way to get your thoughts clear(But present to good, active participants).

7. Effective Time Management

Most of the(normal) human beings have small concentration spans. Do not work continuously on things that are brain taxing. Taking breaks at appropriate time is of great importance-that increase your output quality and keep your brain in good shape. Always think about problem first and then attack it.

Good programmers spend more time on problem than their bad counterparts.

Work efficiently. Do not overwork. Stay healthy and fit to code more!

This list took shape in my mind by observing programmers(good ones and others) at work. And it keeps on evolving, as I keep moving on with my career. To keep this evolution in life, your Ideas, criticism and comments are invited.

adwait111@yahoo.com