How to be a Good Developer

As a PHP developer, or any kind of developer as a matter of fact, you need to constantly improve yourself in this ever-changing industry; you need to learn and use new knowledge every day.
What successful developers have in common, is that they care about programming a lot, they are professionals treating good programming practices as a form of art.
In this article, you’ll learn about how to be a better developer by following the “etiquette” of programming and you’ll learn how to use this information to perhaps teach others to better themselves.

Professionalism, regardless of the job you’re working on, always starts with you. Professionals first and foremost have strong personalities and characters.
As in any area of life, programming professionals are respected. Let’s see how you become one.

Don’t be egoistic

I’ve had the chance to work in large teams since I practice this craft and the most important team dynamic I learned early on is that team and collaboration goes hand in hand.
What you do most of the time in a team is learn from and teach each other, and the work environment should always embrace and reward sharing.
If you don’t want to share your work and knowledge, you’re arrogant and/or have a big ego, you won’t feel comfortable working in an environment like this.

Be responsible

Non-professionals don’t need to take responsibility for their own work. That’s left to the manager. They just get the job assigned to them and forget all about it when the clock hits 5 PM.
A professional programmer can’t accept this. How would you feel if your bug cost your company thousands of dollars?
This is a problem of which the solution also depends on management and how the company handles it. Every company should encourage developers to take responsibility of their actions and more importantly of the code they write.
If your bug slips onto the production server, do everything in your power to fix it as soon as possible, even if it takes all night long. This separates you from the nonprofessionals and gets you a higher paycheck.

Accept criticism

Software without bugs is impossible to write and we’re all victims of committing something stupid into the repository.
How we handle criticism says a lot about how we are looked at as developers.
Every criticism should be listened to and learned from, because that’s what makes you better at what you do, especially if you’re criticized by people who have way more experience than you do.

Have a strong work ethic

Being a professional is a non-stop job. Learning doesn’t last from 9 to 5.
Constantly learning, practicing and improving yourself is an investment in yourself and it’s your responsibility, not your employer’s.
This should also happen outside of work – you shouldn’t rob your employer’s time to read up on the latest SitePoint tutorials [Hey! Easy! ;) -Ed.].
There’s just not enough time, you say? Of course there is! You just have to think smart. If you want to take your career seriously, then focus on it seriously.
Get up early, leave a little bit late. Use those extra hours to your advantage without sacrificing your health and family.
Just half an hour before and after work means an extra five hours every week. That’s more than half an entire eight hour work day.

Read More