Elemental Skills required by Programmers

Qualities required by the programmers

I have only listed out the skills needed for problem solving, skills like team work, communication, .., etc are not discussed but equally important.

Memory

Memory plays an important role in increasing the productivity of development.
When we search internet it may seem like we doesn't spend much time. According to several reports employees spend up to 30 % time searching for information.
On avg I spend 5 to 30 mins searching for answers depending on the problem.
But it doesn't mean you should memorize everything. Try to memorize things you use often. Which will definitely save a lot of time.
There is another problem with memorizing is it creates Einstellung. Which is a mental block or mind set which we cannot think past.

Observation also plays an important role in programming. We have go through all the lines of code.
Our mind tricks us by skipping lines because of Heuristic to save energy. Which is nothing but shortcut our brain uses to make decision in short period of time.
So, we have to be little bit going through our own code.
It can be avoided by mentally debugging or simply debugging.
Many bug can be prevented just by observing little more.

Critical thinking is the ability to use logical reasoning to come to a judgement using facts at hand.
Simply, it is ability to know why we did, what we did in the first place.
Example: If a framework or library is trending you should not skip to it without knowing the facts.

Why you need to use this library?
Is our application certain requirement can be fulfilled by this?
In development there are multiple ways to achieve the say solution, Why we should use a particular approach? Is it efficient ? Does this consumes less time and resources?

Don't get crazy over the heading it's just a acronym.
Keep It Simple, Stupid is nothing but simplicity.
Try to do whatever you do as simple as possible.
Reduce the lines of code by removing unnecessary code.
Don't try reduce or correct while writing the code for the first time. It is like trying to eat while cooking.
First try to solve the problem. Then review and optimize the solution.
Each line of code is a feature and/or a potential bug.
By minimizing the lines you minimize the probability of a bug.

You have challenge your own assumption and believe to break your boundaries and expand your self.
Assumption and belief creates mental block which form a pattern which is hard to break. You may even think it is the best possible way to do thinks.
If you ask a simple question is there way to do this? This is the first step.

At this period, the so called information age things change to rapidly we can't cope up with it. There is always a better way of doing this.
Try searching and learning is a life long process.

Be frugal while using both your and computer resources.
Try not to waste to much energy for doing something if there is another easy, efficient way to do the same thing.
It may consume some time to find a effective solution but in the long run it will be more helpful.

Example: Use clip board managers to easily switch between copied items rather than copying back and forth.

For programming tips please comment!

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