4 Things I Wish I Would Have Known When I Started My Software Development Career

My software development career began about 15 years ago.

But only in about the last 5 years did I really start to see a large boost in my software development career.

Here are some of the things I wish I would have known when I got started in the software development industry; things that would have made me more successful, much earlier, if I would have known them.

There is no “right way” in software development

I wasted a large amount of time, both in studying and arguing, early on in my career, falsely believing there was an absolute “right way” for many aspects of software development.

It turns out that just about everything I once thought was correct about software development at some point turned out to be wrong.

But more importantly, I found that very few things were black and white.  Almost every decision when writing code and developing software is based on the current circumstances.

I’ve talked before about how the religious adoption of a technology can be harmful to software developers, but this topic goes beyond just a technology.

It is also true that no best practice is universal.  Even highly charged topics like whether or not to unit test or whether agile or waterfall methodologies are best, do not have straightforward one-is-always-right answers.

In my career, I’ve wasted plenty of time on the “right way” road that led to nowhere instead of taking the “pragmatic” (practical) road, which would have carried me much further.

Reading a book cover-to-cover is not the best way to learn

When I first started wanting to grow my knowledge of programming and different technologies, I spent too much time reading technical books about a specific technology cover to cover.

There is nothing wrong with reading books, but often the choice of what book to read and what parts of it to read are very important.

For example, I remember reading a very large book on programming with Visual C++. (I’m pretty sure it was an earlier version of this book.)  Anyway, the book was a good book with lots of information, but reading it cover to cover was not the best approach to learning Visual C++.

I would have learned and retained a lot more by skimming over the chapters of the book to get a broad understanding of what there was to know about Visual C++, then figuring out what things were most important to learn first.

I would have had much more success by sitting down and actually practicing the basics by trying to actually build something than just reading or going through examples in the book. You don’t really learn a technology until you’ve solved real problems with it.

Learning particular technologies in-depth is a waste of time

Not only did I waste time by reading books cover to cover, but I also often chose to read the wrong books.

I had mistakenly believed that learning a particular technology inside-out would be a good way to advance my career.

I spent too much time reading books about very specific technologies like ASP.NET or Hibernate instead of reading more books like “Code Complete,” “Clean Code,” and “Agile Principles, Patterns And Practices in C#.” (All of these books, by the way, I recommend that you read, if you haven’t already.)

While it is important to know about the technology you are using, it isn’t important to be an absolute expert in that particular technology. There isn’t much benefit to knowing the exact API call to make when you can just easily look it up when you need it.

Too many technologies that I spent a good amount of time learning about in depth, ended up either dying out or being technologies that I eventually abandoned myself.  Most of the knowledge about those specific technologies ended up representing a big waste of time.

I found that it was important to become an expert at whatever programming language that I was using at the time, because expertise in a particular programming language will usually last you a pretty long time; I definitely would have still spent time learning in depth about C++, C# and Java, but, I perhaps, spent a little too much time learning all the intricacies of C++, which isn’t benefiting me much now.

Community is extremely important in your software development career

Early in my career, I made the mistake of not really reaching out to the community for help and to provide help to others.

I was always good about helping my coworkers and being social at the various jobs I held, but I never really reached much beyond my company.

I spent a large amount of time trying to make an investment in my career at a particular company at the expense of making an investment of my time in the software development communities that I was involved in.

I spent lots of time creating internal presentations on technologies or best practices that could have been spent creating content and material that could have served the community as a whole, as well as brought me recognition at my job.

I also made the mistake of not thinking that I had something valuable to contribute.

I talk to many beginning software developers now and sometimes I think they have much more to contribute to the community than us software developers that have been in the field for a long time, because they understand better the issues that other beginners are struggling with.

If I could do it over again, I would have made sure to be much more involved in conferences and user groups earlier in my career.  I would have started my blog much earlier and I would have used much of my learning time to create projects and resources that would be able to help others rather than just reading a book.

Always have a side project

Perhaps the biggest change I would have made that would have impacted my career the most would have been to cut out all the TV watching, Everquest and World of Warcraft playing I did earlier in my life and replace that time with work on a side project.

I’ve wasted a pretty sizable amount of time in my life doing things that were enjoyable, but didn’t produce any long term benefit for my life.

About 3-4 years ago, I pretty much cut out watching TV completely and now I hardly ever watch movies either.  TV and most movies are just a huge waste of time that you could be using to do something useful.  The same goes for video games for the most part, but at least with video games you are actively doing something not just absorbing useless information.

I’ll always love to play video games and I don’t think I’ll ever stop, but I do wish I would have spent a good deal of the time I spent playing video games and watching TV on a side project instead.

Sadly, the first real side project I actually took on was only about 3 years ago when I started creating my first Android application.

When you are working for someone else, it is really important to spend time working for yourself as well, otherwise you are building someone else’s empire while neglecting your own.

Not only did I learn a huge amount from the side projects I have taken on in the last few years, but I have benefited greatly from them.  In fact, one of those side projects, creating Pluralsight courses, is something I am doing pretty much full time now.

Putting everything I learned together

These are just a few of the things that I wish I had known when I first started my software development career, but there are many more and lots of other things that I did do right from the beginning.

I’m actually working on a top secret project to put all this information together to help developers boost their career and learn to market themselves.

If you want to be the first to be notified when this project gets officially launched, sign up here, and I’ll be sure to let you know.

What about you?

What are some of the things you wish you would have known when you started your software development career?  Let me know in the comments below.

Published at DZone with permission of John Sonmez, author and DZone MVB. (source)

(Note: Opinions expressed in this article and its replies are the opinions of their respective authors and not those of DZone, Inc.)

 

我的软件开发生涯开始于15年前。

　　但是直到最近的5年，我才真正开始看到自己在软件开发领域的巨大进步。

　　这里有一些感悟是我希望能够在我进入软件开发领域时所知道的事情，如果我早一些领悟到，相信会比现在更加成功，也更节省一些时间。

　　软件开发工作没有“正确方法”

　　在软件开发生涯的早期，我曾经浪费了大量的时间在学习和争辩，错误的相信有一条“绝对正确的方法”能够应付软件开发的很多方面。

　　结果证明我曾经认为关于软件开发的每一件正确的事情到最后都是错误的。

　　但是更重要的是，我发现很少有事情是黑白分明的。在写代码和开发软件时所做的几乎每一个决定都取决于当时所处的环境。

　　我曾经讨论过关于技术的宗教式信仰是如何对软件开发者不利的，但这个话题已超出技术范畴。

　　没有万能的最佳实践方式，这句话很对。甚至像“是否应该进行单元测试”、“敏捷开发和瀑布模型哪个最好”这种高热度的话题都不会有一个直截了当的简单答案。

　　在我的职业生涯中，我已经浪费了大量时间在这种“正确方法”上以至于最终一无所获，而不是探寻可以让我走更远的“实用主义”道路。

　　一页一页看书不是最佳的学习方式

　　当我第一次想提升自己的编程水平和各种技术水平时，我花了非常多的时间一页一页地读具体的技术类的书。

　　读书并没有错，但是要有选择那些重要的书和重要的章节读。

　　比如，我记得我曾经读过一本非常厚的关于Visual C++的书（我非常确定是《Beginning Visual C++ 2012》的早期版本）。总之，这本书是一本包含了海量知识的好书，但是一页一页读并不是学习Visual C++的最佳途径。

　　早知道我就应该像过流水账一般地粗略地看下这本书的所有章节，以了解Visual C++包括哪些知识点，然后再考虑哪些部分是最重要的，是应该首先读的。

　　如果我坐下来实际练习下书中的基础练习题而不是仅仅看过或跳过这些例子的话，会有更多的收获。除非你实际用你的所学解决了实际的问题，否则算不上你学会了这门技术。

　　深入学习特别技术是浪费时间

　　我不仅仅浪费时间在一页一页的读书，还经常选择了那些错误的书读。

　　曾经的我花费了大量的时间读诸如ASP.NET或Hibernate等特别技术的书，而不是读像《代码大全》、《代码整洁之道》、《敏捷软件开发：原则、模式与实践（C#版）》（顺便说一句，如果你还没有读过这些书，我推荐你读一读）。

　　比起知道你所用的技术的重要性，成为某一特别领域的专家是不重要的。知道某一个具体API调用一点好处都没有，当你需要它的时候只要查询下就好了。

　　我曾经花费大量时间深入学习的许多技术中，到最后要不这技术逐渐没落，要不就是太过技术以至于我自己放弃了它。这些特别技术中的绝大多数最终都证明是在浪费时间。

　　只要是我正在使用，无论什么语言，成为这种编程语言方面的专家都是很重要的，因为在一门特殊语言方面的专业知识能够让你活跃在软件开发领域许多年。当然，我仍然在花时间深入学习C++、C#和JAVA，但是，对于现在的我来说，可能多花一点时间在C++的各种纷繁难懂之处并没有什么好处。

　　技术社区在软件生涯中极其重要

　　在我早年的职业生涯中，我犯过的一个错误就是没有投入到技术社区中求助或帮助他人。

　　我总是乐于帮助我的同事，并和我所接触的各类职业打交道，但从来超出我所在公司的人员和岗位范围。

　　曾经我花了大量时间将自己投入在所在公司的职业生涯中，而没有在软件开发社区中投入一点时间，这点非常的不划算。

　　曾经我花时间致力于内部技术建设的分享或实践，原本也可以在技术社区中做同样的分享和交流，也同样会给我带来工作上的认可。

　　我也错误的认为我没有什么有价值的事情贡献给技术社区。

　　现在的我会和很多软件开发的新手们聊天，有时候我想相比我们他们一定花了很多精力贡献在技术社区，因为和其他新手相比较，他们看起来没有懂的更多，也没那么抓狂。

　　如果时光能够倒流，我确信年轻时候的自己一定会投入很多时间在技术会议和用户群组上，我会尽早地开始写自己的博客并创建自己的项目和资源与其他人分享，而不是呆呆地读书。

　　永远有编外项目在做

　　影响我职业生涯最大的选择可能就是杜绝看电视、《无尽的任务》和《魔兽世界》游戏了，取而代之的是将这些时间用在我的编外项目上。

　　在过去的生活中我已经浪费了很多时间在做娱乐活动，而不是那些能够充实我生活的事情。

　　在大约3-4年前，我已经基本和看电视这种活动决绝了，现在的我甚至都很少看电影。看电视和看绝大多数电影都是一种时间浪费，浪费那些原本可以做一些有用之事的时间。多数的电视游戏也是如此，但至少玩电视游戏收获的也不仅仅只是无用信息。

　　我非常喜欢玩电视游戏，而且恐怕也不会有停手的那一天，但是我着实希望我能够把花费在玩游戏、看电视的时间投入在自有的项目上。

　　不幸的是，我真正开始自己的第一个项目却是在大约3年以前，那时的我开始着手创建一个Android应用程序。

　　当你为别人工作时，能够花时间在自己的项目上非常重要，否则就是在牺牲自己的精力为别人建造帝国。

　　在过去的几年间，我不仅从编外项目中学习到了不少东西，而且也从其中得到了巨大的利益。事实上，其中的一个编外计划：创建Pluralsight课程，是我现在正全职在在做的事情。

　　将所学揉合起来

　　以上所说是少数我后悔没有在自己职业生涯开始时知道的感悟，但从一开始我仍然做了很多正确的事情。

　　实际上我在一个绝密项目中正将这些信息结合起来帮助开发者开始他们的职业生涯并让他们学会推销自己。