How Senior Programmers ACTUALLY Write Code

Thriving Technologist

Professional habits are what makes the difference between someone who actually writes code like a senior programmer - and wishful thinking. The syntax and patterns you use on software projects don't matter nearly as much as the standards you hold yourself to for professionalism.

In this episode, I share the essential habits I've developed while working on nearly software projects over my career. If you want to write code like senior programmers do, I hope these practices help you stand out from the pack.

6 HABITS FOR WRITING CODE LIKE A SENIOR PROGRAMMER

The first habit is to finish the code you start! There's immense pressure on some scrum or kanban projects to show progress, but if you aren't done - don't lie about it! This only leads to more personal technical debt that you will be under more stress to finish later. If you don't want to let the code grow out of control - this is completely up to you.

The second habit is to enforce coding standards. If other programmers on your team have different preferences for how they like to format curly braces, spacing, or any other aspect of your code - this makes it frustrating to share code across the project. We've got the tools to do this automatically now - use them!

The third habit is to be disciplined about documenting the patterns the team has agreed to use. You absolutely must have a wiki topic or markdown file in your project that has links to how to apply every major pattern on your project. If you do this, it reduces wasted time in code reviews, and prevents people from introducing new patterns without a justifiable reason for having a discussion before it permeates throughout the codebase.

The fourth habit is to review new coding patterns with your team as soon as you introduce them. Rather than replace an existing pattern all over the code base (ask for forgiveness rather than permission), do your teammates a solid and be inclusive as soon as you have something to show. They'll probably have good advice for how to improve on your use of it, and you can get their buy-in and enlist them to help you with the full refactoring effort.

The fifth habit is to NEVER expose refactoring as tasks, user stories, or tickets in jira, github issues, trello, asana, visual studio online - or whatever tool your team may be using for work tracking. Whenever an essential engineering practice is called out as a separate item - it only tempts management to pull it out.

And the sixth and final habit is to always assume there will be unexpected change in the project for every task you need to estimate. Whether it's unplanned software design meetings, troubleshooting, or documentation - to write code like senior programmers actually do, you can't be pressured to cut corners. While we can't predict every possible uncertainty on a software project, if you estimate like nothing will go wrong - it's your own fault.

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Chapter markers / timelinks

(00:00) Introduction(00:25) Why senior code matters(00:30) 1. Team comprehension(00:57) 2. Reduce interruptions(01:28) 3. Extend longevity of code(02:10) 6 habits of senior programmers(02:18) 1. Prevent unfinished work(03:46) 2. Enforce coding standards(05:11) 3. Document chosen patterns(08:11) 4. Review new patterns early(09:28) 5. Never expose refactoring(11:16) 6. Assume unexpected change(12:40) Episode groove

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