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Ask HN: How do you go from being an average developer to a great one?

18 points by vishalzone2002 ↗ HN
An average developer is probably one who can write code, solve issues by looking at stack overflow, intermediate with a programming language. But how do you become someone with great skills who is respected in the industry. One who works at places like google, twitter or facebook and can crack interviews without preparing for weeks. Solves algorithms and other CS questions with complete confidence. I believe the biggest answer here is probably practice and I agree, but is there someone who has gone this route? Please share your thought,resources,advice. Thanks !!

14 comments

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muddylemon
Work with people smarter than you
vishalzone2002
I agree but to even get to that, One probably needs to be good enough or higher than the average bar to get in their company.
sejje
Make a point to work with the best programmer in the company (or best that you can get to work with), rather than working with the portion that is inferior to you.
mcdevhammer
A lot of reading blogs, articles, etc. online, and a lot of time spent in your spare time working on projects. Also working on things that are new and challenging to you. Also if you come across something you don't understand while reading and article or working on a project don't just skip over it, spend the time to really understand the concept.
georgem12
Reading a lot seems to help - keeps you up to date on what's possible, so when you hit a problem you have something in the back of your mind to resolve it. (more practical than algorithms-y).
mromanuk
Practice make the master. If we change 'programming' to other discipline, it becomes evident: How do you go from being an average pianist to a great one?

Practice, mentors, books, new challenges, rewriting code, etc.

arghbleargh
As you noted, the biggest thing is practice. But here are a few specific tips that I believe significantly improved my programming ability:

1) Try to get the implementation 100% correct on the first try. I don't mean that you should implement the whole system in one go, but the part you implement should do exactly what you want it to do (i.e. no typos, mixed up variable names, etc.). At first I thought this was a bit harsh, but it was amazing how much debugging you can avoid with a little more focus in the beginning. Also, it forces you to adopt good coding practices and make sure your algorithms are fully specified.

2) Don't tolerate tedious work. If there's any part of your workflow that's tedious, spend a lot of effort trying to minimize it. Some examples of things you might do: write a script, refactor your code, use a better editor, use a different programming language. You won't learn much from changing 100 variable names to camel-case, other than how painful it is. You will learn something from writing a tool to help you do that.

3) Think about how various libraries and frameworks you use are implemented, especially if they have features that seem like "magic". Try to reverse-engineer their design, or take a look at their source code (if available). This is a natural way to gain exposure to new ideas.

Regarding more "theoretical" subjects like algorithms and data structures that you might need to know for interviews, you could practice on programming contest websites (e.g. www.codeforces.com) or read some textbooks. However, in my opinion, those are not nearly as important for a software developer as the three things mentioned above.

bjourne
1) is great advice. It's roughly equivalent to what most music teachers recommend for learning to play an instrument. If you just play all day long you wont improve, or at least not improve as quickly, as if you just play one hour per day in which you try hard to play as perfectly as possible.
hvd
I got this piece of advice from a mentor. "The best developers are not the smartest ones, but the ones who ship most often." That being said, following a test driven development path will put you ahead of everyone who doesn't test.
foolishdream
Start calling yourself one. Then work on a prominent enough project that people start believing you. If this doesn't work, write / speak / comment / manage your way to credibility and higher visibility. If a great programmer programs by himself in the forest and no one notices, then no one cares.