Continuous improvement: The secret to becoming an excellent PHP developer

In the ever-changing software development industry, continuous learning and application of new knowledge is a quality that every developer, especially PHP developers, must possess. Successful developers all have one thing in common: they love programming and regard good programming practice as an art form. This article will explore how to improve development skills by following programming “etiquette” and share how this knowledge can be used to guide others to improve themselves.

Core points

• A good developer is a professional who is willing to share knowledge, be responsible for his work, be brave to accept criticism and continue to learn and improve.
• Writing high-quality code requires reading and understanding source code, learning new technologies, spending time evaluating problems, testing code, and understanding tools and libraries that can help solve problems.
• To avoid burnout, developers need to take regular breaks and participate in activities outside of work. They should also keep the code base neat and understand that estimation is not a promise, but just guess.
• Mastering development skills includes effective communication, collaboration, understanding the industry, and continuous self-improvement through exercises such as code Kata.
• Being a good developer is not just about writing code, it also involves understanding the problem at hand, collaborating effectively, and mastering the tools needed to solve problems.

How to Become a Professional

No matter what kind of job you are engaged in, professionalism begins with yourself. Professionals first have strong personalities and character. Programming professionals are highly respected in any field. Let's see how to become a programming professional.

Avoid conceit

The most important dynamic in teamwork is teamwork. Most of the time team work is spent learning and teaching each other, and the work environment should always encourage and reward knowledge sharing.

If you are unwilling to share your work and knowledge, then you are arrogant or too conceited and you will not be able to adapt to this working environment.

Assume responsibility

No professionals are not responsible for their work, which is left to the manager. They just completed the assigned tasks and the clock pointed to 5pm and forgot everything.

Professional programmers cannot accept this. How would you feel if your mistake caused thousands of dollars to the company?

The solution to this problem also depends on management and how the company handles it. Every company should encourage developers to be responsible for their actions, and more importantly, for the code they write.

If your error code goes into the production server, try to fix it as quickly as possible, even if it needs to be all night long. This separates you from non-professionals and gives you a higher salary.

Accept criticism

It is impossible to write software without errors, we all make some stupid mistakes. How we deal with criticism largely determines how others view us.

Every criticism should be listened carefully and absorbed because it will make you better at what you do, especially if you are criticized by someone more experienced than you.

Have a strong work ethic

Being a professional is a never-ending job. Learning is not limited to 9 to 5.

Continuously learning, practicing and improving yourself is an investment in yourself. It is your responsibility, not your employer's responsibility.

This should also happen outside of work - you should not take up valuable time from your employer to read the latest tutorials.

Not enough time? Of course there is! You just need to think smartly. If you want to take your career seriously, then take it seriously.

Get up early and leave for a while. Use this extra time to play to your strengths without sacrificing your health and family.

Just half an hour before and after work means five more hours a week. That's more than half of a full eight-hour working day.

How to write high-quality code

Read the source code

You can think of it this way: If you don’t practice reading at all, you can’t learn to read quickly. The job of a developer is to write high-quality code, but if you don't know what high-quality code looks like, you can't write high-quality code.

Most developers use third-party libraries blindly without touching source code. This is OK, but to understand how a particular library can help, you need to dig deeper and read its source code, comments, and run tests (if any).

Reading the code can also help you quickly spot errors from other developers, which can be very helpful if you do code review or pair programming.

Learn new technologies

Always be happy to learn new technologies and determine how they can help you become a better programmer.

Always be open to new things and don't ignore the latest trends just because you think they will be outdated. Everything is circular, but what remains unchanged is the knowledge you gain by opening your mind.

Even with 15-20 years of practical experience, excellent developers will never stop learning.

Slow down

Slowing down means spending more time evaluating the problem you are trying to solve. Speed ??is not what you should pursue.

I have seen junior developers deliver code as quickly as possible after getting a task, resulting in errors in the code, and it takes more time to fix these errors than they take to sit down and think carefully about the right solution. .

Senior developers are lazy and slow, which is good for everyone, because good programmers don't want to do twice.

For advanced developers, writing actual code only accounts for 1/3 of the time they spend on tasks, and the rest of their time is spent thinking about good solutions to problems.

Test your code

This won't be a debate about test-driven development (TDD) or non-TDD, but remember that any type of testing is very important for delivering high-quality code.

How do you know if there is nothing broken? Do you know what you did in the code base of a certain feature a few months ago?

Testing through the test, you can understand how the code actually works. It's like a guide, like a catalog of books. Tests show you where to look for and what to look for.

Writing tests for your code is difficult at first, but in the long run, it has proven to be beneficial.

Learn your tool set

Learn which tools you can use to help you solve your problem. Ultimately, most tools depend on personal preference, but remember that a good tool or library can help you a lot.

Think about how much time you spend in the editor, whether it's a full IDE or just a syntax-highlighted text editor.

Also, you should determine if it is worth using a specific library for this work. Is using PHP framework worth it? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Is it worth using bulky CMS for a project?

You should consider these issues before writing any line of code.

How to keep track

Fighting Burnout

Continuously writing code in a loop that seems to be endless can be boring. Most developers who work long enough in the industry have experienced burnout at some stage of their career.

Burnout is associated with long hours of work and so-called "impostor syndrome", which means that the developer constantly thinks that he is not good enough and that he needs to work harder in order to get better, and more is not necessarily the case. Meaning better.

The best solution is to take a step back, get out of this cycle, do other things, and be creative. Take a vacation, even if it's just a few days.

Another increasingly popular solution to combat burnout is to find a team member who you can pair up with. Social interaction with another person is very effective.

Code maintenance

Staying on track also means keeping a clean code base. Not only for others, but also for yourself. Code without tests or documentation is like Russian roulette.

What happens when you need to revisit a feature in a few months? You will spend more time figuring out what you are actually doing, not in the task itself.

I have seen clients contact developers to refactor their projects countless times because the previous team lost interest or could no longer work, and almost all the time the response of the new team had to be rewritten from scratch.

This is because the previous team was unable to maintain a clean and reliable code base. This practice takes a lot of time; read an article titled “18 Key Oversights in Web Development” which covers how to keep your code neat and other best practices.

About Estimation

Estimation is a sensitive issue for many programmers and managers, but it shouldn't be the case. I believe everyone has heard of a situation where managers ask developers how long a task takes, and they expect a clear answer, but the estimated task still takes twice the time it was originally estimated.

What most people don't realize is that estimates are just guesses, not promises. To be a better developer, you should know that estimation is never a commitment, because once you commit something, it means you are responsible for delivering it.

Estimation is never, nor will it be a promise, this is the essence of estimation. It's hard for people to estimate the time of a given task, and if your manager asks to do so, you should tell him that you can't promise you can't be 100% sure what you can do on time.

However, you can make a guess, but don't make any promises.

How to Become a Master

Communication

It's all about communication. I have seen some projects and companies fail because team members cannot communicate.

Keep communication simple and direct, avoiding the middlemen between you and the recipient. Every “node” in the communication line creates an almost exponentially growing complexity.

The enterprise has a lot of problems with this - which is why it is progressing so slowly, every decision has to go through a dozen people, and the agile team is here to shine.

Keeping communication simple and clear means you can act faster than others and you can understand your task more clearly, which gives you an advantage, so don't be afraid to ask questions and ask specific questions.

Cooperation

In addition to being a good communicator, you also need to be an excellent collaborator. Let’s face it, programmers are not the best people who are good at socializing.

You need not only work with other developers, but also with your manager and perhaps directly with customers.

Collaboration also means knowing what is in danger, getting the job done and becoming a good team member.

If you find it difficult to work effectively with others, try pair programming. The essence of pair programming is collaboration.

Knowledge Curse

According to Wikipedia: "The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that makes it difficult for well-informed participants to think about problems from the perspective of less informed participants."

Basically, it is difficult for advanced developers to explain problems that are so simple that junior developers can understand. This is because they are all very familiar with the problem and the techniques to solve it, but when they try to explain it to others, they fail because this explanation is just a summary of the knowledge in their minds.

In short, it's hard not to know something when you understand it. To solve this problem, you need to use a specific language. Explain a problem in detail, and continue to do it even if you find it ridiculous, because your mindset does not equal the mindset of the recipient.

Know your field

If you call yourself a programming expert, then you become a programming expert. Learn about your field from top to bottom and don't be afraid to say no.

In short, becoming an expert is saying no to others because it means you are defending your truth and having qualifications among your peers, and you are right most of the time.

Understanding your field does not necessarily mean you have a computer science degree, which means you have extensive experience and practice in what you do. You need not only improve your general programming skills, but also your computer engineering and architecture skills.

Being an expert means you have found the best programming design to solve the problem, and writing code is this "side effect".

Understanding the industry you are in

No one can create good software without understanding the business problems and what problems they are trying to solve with your code.

You need to be proactive and interested in the business as this will be reflected in your work. Without clear goals and specific issues, the code will inadvertently become a mess, and that's how encoding works.

You need to strictly control what functions to implement, especially how to implement them, but for this, the business value must be very clear.

If you feel that your professional knowledge and business goals are not very consistent, please do yourself a favor and do not accept the job. Cherish your time because it is priceless.

Code Kata

In order to continuously improve yourself, first you must know what level you are at.

Code Kata is an exercise for programmers to practice and find better solutions to different problems.

You can try to solve the code Kata on Project Euler, CodeKata or Topcoder.

Topcoder even offers rewards for finding the best solutions for its programming challenges.

Summary

Programming is not so much a technical skill as a social skill. To become a good programmer, you must first improve your personality. Then, master the programming principles.

You need to keep improving yourself, constantly learning, and be one step ahead. To truly specialize, you need to understand the business and the problems you are trying to solve with code.

Code is just a by-product of the entire problem solution, and its contribution to the overall situation is minimal. Problem-solving ideas, collaboration skills, and proficiency in mastering the tools needed to solve problems are the key to becoming a respected professional.

Frequently Asked Questions about Being a Great Developer (FAQ)

(The FAQ part is omitted here because it is highly coincidental with the original content. You only need to keep the core points to avoid duplication.)

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