This is a weekly roundup of awesome DEV comments that you may have missed. You are welcome and encouraged to boost posts and comments yourself using the #bestofdev tag.
What are your worst coding habits? @selbekk takes the top spot with this very relatable behavior:
I write git status at least 4000 times a day, for no reason whatsoever.
This was a super fun thread. What are you "old enough to remember" in software development? @javierg goes way back here:
10 print "Hello World"
20 goto 10
After reading The "Fake Developer" Conundrum, @syntaxseed offers some wonderful perspective and advice about imposter syndrome:
Many people suffer from something called Imposter Syndrome, which is very common among developers & other careers where things are constantly changing & we have to be constantly learning.
Even professionals who have been doing it for decades can struggle with it. Even some famously brilliant people!
Reading a bit about this might help you.
But you aren't fake - you are new. We have all been there. I remember completing a 4 year CS degree & thinking I was pretty skilled ... only to learn that what you do in a job is very different from school. And you can even master one job then go work at a new company & be totally lost & out of your element.
Some of this feeling will fade with experience & time. Some of it won't. Don't think of your career as a developer as a path to mastery. You aren't climbing a mountain to some elite status of expert. Instead you will ride a wave of increasing knowledge , skill & confidence, then technology will change or your job or your life situation. You'll find yourself having to learn a new tech or language, or new way of using your current language or a new company process, or a new challenging problem....
See the pattern here? You will always be new at something, always learning.
Cut yourself a break & stop trying to measure up to some imaginary level & just enjoy the new challenges & welcome opportunities to be out of your element.
It's never boring. :)
A more specific question: Which editor do you use when opening files like .bash_profile, etc?, @irreverentmike talks about their use of Vim:
Confusingly, this is the only thing I use vim for. Everything else is in a different tool.
This is a great recurring thread to find more DEV members to follow and engage with. The top comment to the most recent Follow Friday: What DEV member would you recommend following? thread goes to @maxwell_dev who highlights a number of amazing authors from the community:
I'd recommend following a group we (by which I mean myself mostly) have dubbed the #DevDaemons for their overall strong content on this site. Plus the name just sounds cool 😛
There are likely people who will be added to this group later. Regardless, follow them!
See you next week for more great comments ✌
Top comments (2)
Congrats to @selbekk , @javierg , @syntaxseed , @irreverentmike , and @maxwell_dev for making the list this week!
Wow, what an honor! 👋🎉