View http://www.brandonsavage.net/five-ways-to-write-better-code/
One of the best thing about being a developer is that you’re never ‘done’ training. Even if you’re writing in a language that hasn’t been updated in a decade you can still improve the way you utilize it.
When I was first starting out in development, I thought that writing code was pretty easy. It took me a while (and a long learning process) before I realized that writing code is harder than it looks. Looking back on some of that first code, I wonder how it ever worked, how I avoided a serious security problem, and what I was thinking about when I wrote some of that code.
Experience is the way that most of us learn how to write code, but experience is a lousy teacher: it gives the lesson after the test. Here are some ways you can improve your code writing right now.
I bet we can all nod our head at least a few times while reading just that bit of this article. I know I can. The tips offered here are great ones, but I’d like to single one out as it’s something I’ve been trying to do more and more.
Number 3 on the list is ‘Fix bugs in the open source projects you use’. I’ve been doing my best to contribute to those projects that I use each and every day both by way of bugfixes or feature enhancements but also trying to help other people use them. I wouldn’t be where I was without a number of projects and I really think that giving back when you can is important. I realize that we’re all super busy and it’s really hard to find the time to contribute to someone else’s project, but when the same happens for yours it’s one of the best feelings in the world. I’m hoping to contribute even more to other projects this year, because there’s so much good out there.