We wanted to ask the Sland developers what advice they would give to other developers (juniors, seniors, and everything in between) in the industry. These pieces of advice can also apply to other roles in this industry and are a nice read-through.
Read on to see what they had to say!
Try Not to Be a Jack of All Trades
Don’t take this the wrong way. The idea of being good at everything can make us believe that we are becoming a more proficient developer. But the reality is, as a developer, you don’t need to know every single coding language or the ins and outs of every application. Alone, there are over 200 coding languages (JavaScript alone has 83 frameworks)!
Yes, it’s important to continue learning.
Yes, staying on top of new technologies research can be vital.
Yes, there are times that your process can become outdated and you will have to do something new.
This doesn’t mean you need to become a jack of all trades. Insead, stick to what you are strong at and refine those skills. Such as all things in life, it is impossible to be amazing at everything and the same applies to being a good developer.
Backup Your Sh*t!
Okay this may seem like a throw away piece of advice, but how many of us have fallen victim to losing our work because we forgot to hit that Save button?! We all have had this happen and know the woes that come with it.
Sometimes backing up work or saving progress can be easy to forget, but the more we backup/save our work, the more routine it becomes (and the more headaches we save). There are also so many tools out there that will do the backups behind the scenes. One tool we love using to do backups here at Sland is UpdraftPlus. With this tool, we are able to schedule frequent backups, restore what has been lost, and we can utilize it for site migrations.
Different Angles Can Reveal Creative Solutions
We’ve all been stuck on what feels like an unsolvable problem. You’re ready to throw in the towel and metaphorically smash your head against your keyboard.
Give yourself the time and patience to think outside the box and approach problems at a different angle. Thinking outside the box is something that requires practice and is easier said than done. It means we need to continually practice implementing change, but it gives us a chance to falsify old assumptions and to be innovative. Not only will this reveal creative solutions for the problem you’re having, but you’ve also now created a new skill that can be used for other problems down the road.
In simpler terms, think of it this way: 1 + 3 = 4, but also 2 + 2 = 4. These are different solutions that still solve the same problem. Viewing problems at a different angle helps to sharpen critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.
Honing in on these skills is one of the reasons our developers love doing what they do—finding new ways to solve issues, even if they’ve been solved before!
Future-Proof Your Work
As a developer, there is an endless list of why it’s important to future-proof your work and take into consideration problems that may arise. Like the above given piece of advice, allow yourself to view problems at different angles to reveal creative solutions since this can also help you future-proof your work.
Here are some of our top reasons why future-proofing your work is key:
- Taking shortcuts, especially while building large applications/work can come back to bite you by creating more work in the end
- Future-proofing helps with long-term scalability and forward-thinking
- It helps with adaptability, especially in an industry with constant changes
- Emergencies and/or disruptions that do arise can be solved more quickly and effectively
Users Do The Strangest Things. Test Everything
And we mean everything. How one person uses a website or application can be completely different to how another person uses them which is why it’s important to go through every scenario.
Testing should be an ongoing process, designed to check all aspects of a website such as functionality, usability, performance, speed, security, and so much more. It’s also important to have a second set of eyes testing your work since it’s proven that humans have a harder time evaluating their own work objectively. Testing is a crucial practice for developers to debug, find + fix defects, and validate their work.
Even if a developer has done a certain task hundreds of times, testing should still be done. That’s when it should be done the most!
Become Acquainted With Your Imposter Syndrome
Whether you are a junior starting to dip your toes into the industry or a strong senior developer, you will face Imposter Syndrome more than once in your career. Sometimes it can even feel like it’s constantly looming over you. But understand that everyone will feel it, no matter how high up you are in this industry—and that can be humbling to know!
Here’s some quotes from the devs in regards to Imposter Syndrome:
“If it feels like your Imposter Syndrome went away, then you aren’t learning.”
“You’re your own worst critic. Let your work speak for itself.”
“Fake it ‘til you make it because faking it is still doing it. And by doing it, you’re learning.”
We’re not meant to know everything and that’s one thing we love about building websites. It gives us a chance to ask lots of questions, learn from our peers and learn from our mistakes, find satisfying solutions, and most importantly, showcase the digital work we have created.
Get connected with the Sland team.