To use a programming language is very easy for a programmer, but it's a dream for many programmers to be an expert software developer. There are five levels of programmers: Novice, Senior novice, competent, proficient, and expert. Most programmers are senior novice. And programmer living in this level are a lot of people who have 1 to 10 years work experience.As a programmer, how to find the bottlenecks for your improvement and how to improve yourself quickly? This is really not an easy question which can be answered in a few words. I started to work in software industry in 2009 and I left the...

When I was a teenager I played high caliber baseball. I’m competitive to a fault and when I decide I want to be good at something, results usually follow. Now I’m a third year undergrad studying computer science. There’s something critically different between programming and sports though: A pitching coach teaches you how to pitch, but a CS professor doesn’t teach you how to code.I was surprised that neither my TAs nor professors critiqued my code during my first year, but grew concerned after my second year. The assignments were larger and the problems tougher, but...

A popular saying goes that Programmers are machines that turn caffeine into code.And sure enough, ask a random programmer when they do their best work and there’s a high chance they will admit to a lot of late nights. Some earlier, some later. A popular trend is to get up at 4am and get some work done before the day’s craziness begins. Others like going to bed at 4am.At the gist of all this is avoiding distractions. But you could just lock the door, what’s so special about the night?I think it boils down to three things: the maker’s schedule, the sleepy brain and br...

1.- The all code is crap, except mine, attitude.I have bad news for you buddy, all code is crap. No matter how much effort you put on it, there is always a majority of programmers who are going to think that your code sucks and that they could have done it 10 times better. I have already covered this topic in previous posts, you can find more information of what exactly I mean when I say that all the code is crap here and here.How to fix it: Don’t criticise others people code, it could be yours the one in the spotlight, try to make objective and professional observations instead, but do...