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In reply to this:
https://devrant.com/rants/260590/...

As a senior dev for over 13 years, I will break you point by point in the most realistic way, so you don't get in troubles for following internet boring paternal advices.

1) False. Being go-ahead, pro active and prone to learn is a good thing in most places.
This doesn't mean being an entitled asshole, but standing for yourself (don't get put down and used to do shit for others, or it will become the routine) and show good learning and exploration skills will definitely put you under a good light.
2)False. 2 things to check:
a) if the guy over you is an entitled asshole who thinkg you're going to steal his job and will try to sabotage you or not answer acting annoyed, or if it's a cool guy.
Choose wisely your questions and put them all togheter. Don't be that guy that fires questions in crumbles, one every 2 minutes.
Put them togheter and try to work out the obvious and what can be done through google or chatgpt by yourself. Then collect the hard ones for the experienced guy and ask them all at once. He's been put over you to help you.

3) Idiotic. NO.
Working code = good code. It's always been like this.
If you follow this idiotic advice you will annoy everyone.
The thing about renaming variables and crap it's called a standard. Most company will have a document with one if there is a need to follow it.
What remains are common programming conventions that everyone mostly follows.

Else you'll end up getting crazy at all the rules and small conventions and will start to do messy hot spaghetti code filled with syntactic sugar that no one likes, included yourself.

4)LMAO.
This mostly never happens (seniors send to juniors) in real life.
But it happens on the other side (junior code gets reviewed).
He must either be a crap programmer or stopped learning years ago(?)

5) This is absolutely true.
Programming is not a forgiving job if you're not honest.
Covering up mess in programming is mostly impossible, expecially when git and all that stuff with your name on it came out.
Be honest, admit your faults, ask if not sure.
Code is code, if it's wrong it won't work magically and sooner or later it will fire back.

6)Somewhat true, but it all depends on the deadline you're given and the complexity of the logic to be implemented.
If very complex you have to divide an conquer (usually)

7)LMAO, this one might be true for multi billionaire companies with thousand of employees.
Normal companies rarely do that because it's a waste of time. They pass knowledge by word or with concise documentation that later gets explained by seniors or TL's to the devs.
Try following this and as a junior:
1) you will have written shit docs and wasted time
2) you will come up to the devs at the deadline with half of the code done and them saying wtf who told you to do that

8) See? What an oxymoron ahahah
Look at point 3 of this guy than re-read this.
This alone should prove you that I'm right for everything else.

9) Half true.
Watch your ass. You need to understand what you're going to put yourself into.
If it's some unknown deep sea shit, with no documentations whatsoever you will end up with a sore ass and pulling your hair finding crumbles of code that make that unknown thing work.
Believe me and not him.
I have been there. To say one, I've been doing some high level project for using powerful RFID reading antennas for doing large warehouse inventory with high speed (instead of counting manually or scanning pieces, the put rfid tags inside the boxes and pass a scanner between shelves, reading all the inventory).
I had to deal with all the RFID protocol, the math behind radio waves (yes, knowing it will let you configure them more efficently and avoid conflicts), know a whole new SDK from them I've never used again (useless knowledge = time wasted and no resume worthy material for your next job) and so on.
It was a grueling, hair pulling, horrible experience that brought me nothing in return execpt the skill of accepting and embracing the pain of such experiences.

And I can go on with other stories. Horror Stories.
If it's something that is doable but it's complex, hard or just interesting, go for it. Expecially if the tech involved is something marketable.

10) Yes, and you can't stop learning, expecially now that AI will start to cover more and more of our work.

Comments
  • 4
    You’re absolutely wrong for point 4.
    The tech lead where I work regularly has me review his pull requests. And I can assure you he’s a monster of a developer. But he’s humble enough to admit he isn’t perfect. And guess what, yes many times I don’t have much to say about his code other than it’s great. But there are times where I do provide feedback and it’s well appreciated. Also it’s a great opportunity for me to learn better coding practices
  • 1
    Point one is so true. Ego will hurt you, I experienced personally
  • 2
    "Working code = good code"

    no.

    working code is ONE requirement for good code. it's the most fundamental requirement, but by no means the ultimate.

    there's myriads of ways to write code that works but is garbage. example: adding numbers by incrementing a result-variable with a for-loop.

    it works. but it's idiotic.

    also: good code needs to be maintainable.
  • 1
    @black-kite yes I 100 % agree. Im 28 and a senior, 36 year old devs need to give their concepts and code to me for reviews. Most of the times its good, sometimes I find something which they value and even catched some nasty bugs which would cause a major incident later on.

    Something I learned trough the years is, always listen what others have to say and then decide. You may master the art but nether become the master of something. Even a Junior should review your code to learn from you and maybe he will spot a mistake you have made. We aint perfect and the will to learn and be humble is one of the crucial things in being a great Dev.
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