5 Common Mistakes Junior Software Developers Make And How To Move Past Them
It takes a lot of time to develop good coding habits.I'm going to present some common mistakes jr. developers make
The more you avoid these mistakes, the better you will become at writing industry - standard code and advancing your career to the next level.As a bonus, you will become more pleasant to work with, which will improve your quality of life inside the company.
#1 Optimizing code prematurely
Junior developers have an obsession with efficiency, which sometimes is unfunded.
First make it work.Than make it right
In the current world, software specifications are ever - changing; therefore, spending extra time to make un - confirmed features efficient is a waste. * * Deliver fast, let others test and only make it more efficient when people complain **.
#2 Not learning communication skills
Junior developers often don't want to admit that they don't know what they are doing, which will lead them to pull all - nighters on a problem that would've taken 5 minutes if they asked the team about it. The simple truth is this: A good developer is a good communicator.
Simply speaking about your situation will adjust expectations, and people will adapt to accommodate the new information.Always communicate with your team.
#3 Unclear pull requests
Nobody likes looking at code, trying to understand what does it do. Here are some solutions:
-Include pictures if possible
- Describe clearly the task related to the PR
- Describe clearly what was changed and why
- Describe how it can be tested(your QA will thank you)
#4 Writing code that is hard to test
I primarily refer to code that uses outside resources(DB connections, 3rd party provider APIs, application state). This type of code is, also called spaghetti code, combines different layers of functionality inside the same function.
Striving for more functional code is one solution here.See my functional programming post [here](/blog/5 - reasons - why - functional - programming - will - make - you - a - better - programmer).
When your code is hard to test, you will spend more writing tests than writing the actual implementation.If you are in the javascript ecosystem, I recommend Kent C.Dodds's course on testing.
#5 Not writing code with other readers in mind
You know you are becoming a better programmer when you imagine other people looking over your code while you code.The more understandable your code is, the better.Clear code is good code.Write comments for parts of your programs that are inherently hard to understand - regex, algorithms, data transformations, complex queries.