https://muldoon.cloud/programming/2020/04/17/programming-rules-thumb.html

Contents

• Contents
• Preamble
  • I have little to say that’s of general value and haven’t found the time to level up
  • My theory of bootstrapping
• The Rules
  • Meta
    • Rule 1: Rules are good
  • Productivity and learning
    • Rule 2: Most of what I learn is useless outside of its immediate context
    • Rule 3: Focus “learning time” on things that compound
  • Programming languages
    • Rule 4: When to use Java or C#
    • Rule 5: When to use Python or Ruby
    • Rule 6: When to use a hardcore language
    • Rule 7: How to do Javascript
    • Rule 8: When to use C or C++
    • Rule 9: Use PHP or Hack if you want to test server changes without rebuilding
  • Technologies
    • Rule 10: When to make a serverless function
    • Rule 11: Which database technology to choose
  • Testing
    • Rule 12: When to write a unit test
    • Rule 13: When to write an integration test
    • Rule 14: When to write an end-to-end test
  • DevOps
    • Rule 15: When to bring on a dedicated support engineer
  • Security
    • Rule 16: If you delegate all your IT security to the InfoSec, they will come up with draconian rules
  • Designing and Whiteboarding
    • Rule 17: Make the design session about input, not approval
  • Project management
    • Rule 18: Estimates serve more for creating pressure than for project planning
    • Rule 19: Be explicit about the difference between hard deadlines, soft deadlines, internal deadlines, and expected completion dates
    • Rule 20: When somebody says Agile, push for Kanban, not Scrum

Preamble

I’m not a 10x developer. I haven’t been building websites since the days of dialup. I picked up programming a few years out of college because I was at a dead end in my career in government and politics.

So I’ve been writing code 9-5 for about five years, all of which have been at Amazon. And during that time, I also raised three kids – who were aged 0, 0, and 2 when I started. So I was not That Guy overachieving on nights and weekends. I was taking care of my family.

I contributed to my first open-source project about a year ago. That was my first ever side project. And it was a conference website.

I have never read a book cover-to-cover on software engineering.

In summary, I am a 1x developer. I do enough to get by respectably.

I have little to say that’s of general value and haven’t found the time to level up

Being a 1x developer, I make heavy use of conventional wisdom. I don’t have much that’s interesting or new to say about software engineering.

In general, I haven’t found the time to take long stretches away from work, or to take on bigger side projects, or to read really extensively, or to dramatically overachieve. I have little pockets of time here and there.

But I’m feeling ambitious. I would like to become a 1.1x developer. I’m trying to figure out how to get there.

My theory of bootstrapping

This post comes at a moment when I’ve got a bit more flexible time, due to COVID-19 and the quarantine and the fact that I’m taking some vacation days from work but can’t actually go anywhere, while the kids are on “Spring Break” from our Pandemic Homeschool.

So I’m going to try to bootstrap my software engineering longbeard wisdom in the following manner:

1. Write out my inane thoughts on some software engineering topics.