#Professional Development 29 Behaviors That Will Make You an Unstoppable Programmer
- Pick out 3 behaviors that resonate with you in the list and describe why they resonate with you in a reflection (4-6 sentences).
- #25- I have to say that I strongly disagree with this one. The idea that if you are working late, you are working hard, can be debunked as myth and not synonymous in so many ways. Not to mention, there is data showing that getting a good night sleep makes you work more efficiently (and produces better work), that working more does not mean better or even more work getting done, and most people work best at different parts of the day. For example, I work best in the morning (granted, I've gotten a good night's sleep). When I was working in an architecture office in Los Angeles, we all had slightly different schedules. I usually was one of the first people in the office in the morning. Because it was quite then, I could consistently get more work done and in much better quality. Others in the office were night owls and came in a bit later and stayed into the wee hours of night. Did that mean they were working harder? Absolutely not. In some cases, staying late might in fact mean you're putting the extra mile into your work, but I think this is incredibly case-specific. One should be judged by the quality and timeliness of his or her work, not by how late they stay in the office. To me, the behavior described in 25 could only a few things. First, that you're trying to show off in a way that is superficial. Two, that you care more about what other people think of you than what you think of yourself. Three, that your workplace cares about the wrong things. I should also mention, this behavior contradicts the behavior in #15
- #8 I Don't Know - I absolutely love this behavior trait. Why? Because it shows a lot about a person. It reveals a sense of humility. Humility or humbleness is incredibly important to high quality progression in oneself (and can also be important in a workplace). Knowing when you don't know and accepting this fact is hard, to say the least. By doing this, though, it allows oneself to accept help from whatever source that may be, as well as throw away all egotistical feelings and fill in the gaps.
- #24 Be Capable of Writing Bad Code - In this seciton, Firehose says that most people fall into 2 categories. One of them is people who "Over-engineer complex solutions to simple problems". I suppose I've been working on deleting this from my hard-drive ever since high school. Slowly, but surely, as I become more aware of this problem of mine, I am able to stop it before it happens. Already, though, I am seeing it in my coding as I begin learning the ins and outs of efficient code. This is the first step to getting better, but it is absolutely something I need to work on.
- Write a reflection (4-6 sentences) on the benefits of a checklist and how an organizational system such as a checklist might help you first as a student and later as a full-time developer.
- I have always been a huge proponent of checklists. I have a whiteboard that is full of checklists with lists varying from things I need to get done this week to a list of songs I need to practice for my band to a grocery list. I have also seen the benefits of checklists through a medical first-responder course that I took a while back. Wilderness First Responder is a certification just below EMT. That is to say, that if you are more than 2 hours from a hospital or primary care, a WFR can act to stabilize a patient/victim. The first thing you learn in this extensive course is basically a checklist of sorts (it's a pyramid, really, but used exactly like a checklist). It covers every important aspect you might not want to miss when checking someone thoroughly and when everything matters, even the little stuff. This checklist offers a great way to cover all of your bases and ask all of the right questions (or lead you to the right questions). Ultimately, this is important because we constantly forget things, even things we've known for a long time (or even things we just learned). Atwul Gawande says that, "Partly I think we have a hard time admitting weakness, and one of the things we have to grapple with is that we have to assume we are fallible, even as experts." I believe this wholeheartedly. When it comes to being a developer and using checklists, it is no different. The tasks will pile up, the ideas will pile up, everything will pile up. And we will most definitely forget. When it comes down to it, a checklist is sort of like having a free assistant. It allows you to use the energy that you would have previously used to remember all of things you put in the checklist for more important things (or just other things).
- What is your impression of strengths-based development? What questions do you have about this kind of development? What do you feel are your top strengths? How do you know? How do you hope to develop your strengths for your new career in software development?
- At first, my impression of this strengths-based development was suspicious. Could an assesment, which provided quite vague options for answers, be truly effective in pinpointing someone's actual strengths? I've always been a bit up in the air about these things. Pyschology assesments are something I've read a lot about and studied a bit in school. Yet, they've always thrown me for a loop because many times they mimick such formats as this Gallup assesment, which allow for much human error. What I mean by human error is that because you know you are being tested and assessed, it is likely that this knowledge will affect the way you answer questions. For instance, if you want to see yourself as something you're not (or even believe yourself to be something you're not), you're likely to answer a question based on how you would like to seee yourself rather than what you truly believe. Maybe for fear of what other people think or maybe for fear of what truths you might find out. Either way, tests like these still baffle me a bit. Although, I'm not opposed to taking them. But, as much as I would like to think that humans are not that predictable, the truth is that we are. And that makes assessing things like personal strengths quite a bit easier. I honestly believe that focusing on strengths over weaknesses is beneficial most of the time, but there are times when finding weaknesses and working to fix them is better. We won't always have someone else to fall back on, and thus we'll have to learn ourselves. Sort of like the old saying, "if you want to get things done right, you better do them yourself". Obviously, NO, this doesn't apply most of the time, but sometimes it does. The question that I have about this development is mostly to do with the ways in which it is being implemented in various situations and how that effects things other than productivity. Going off of the assessment, I picked out a few strengths that I feel are my best: responsibility, adaptability, consistency, discipline, and relator. I picked these based on past experiences I have had and/or personal information I've gathered about myself over the years. I realize this is vague, but I think it would take a long time and be very difficult to explain each of these traits without going into great detail. I continually try to develop these strengths, whether that be consciously or unconsciously. They are a part of my being and each of them proves beneficial in different situations. I'll focus on one in particular in the software development industry: adaptability. Someone, not to long ago, asked me if there was anything I had not done. This is not to brag, by any means. I have just gone through many phases in my life and learned a lot of different random things. Let's list them: piano, competition equestrian/show jumping, bass guitar, upright bass, soccer, baseball, tennis, rock climbing, backpacking, canoeing, sailing, rowing, architecture, photography, film-making....ok, you get the point. Adaptability is probably my strongest suit. I like the challenge of learning something knew or trying to adapt to a situation that I previously had not encountered. I've lived in many different places, with many different cultures, and many different aged people. I enjoy the process of adapting and find it enjoyable to go from completely on edge or uncertain to being sure, whether that takes a few minutes or many months. This strength seems to be a good one for software development considering the ever-changing world of technology. And thus, developing it further will only make things more exciting.