Difference Between Good And Great Developers

Hi! It’s good to know that you came here to become a little bit better in programming by gaining new information. Nathan Rothschild said once that who owns the information, he owns the world.

Who they are: developers? Official definition says that a developer is an individual that builds and creates software and applications. He or she is responsible for working on the development of web or mobile products. But honestly, I would rather offer my own definition.

A developer or a programmer in general is someone who solves a problem you didn’t know you had, in a way that you don’t understand. Or in other words, it is a high functioning human being that turns coffee and pizza into bugs and then fixes these bugs to produce new bugs.

This is the way how things work indeed. The question is that developers might be of different type. Some are insecure thin boys in glasses and braces; some are smart, but antisocial fellows who are afraid of talking to the females. Yet I’m not going to talk about appearance of developers, but about their quality.

I won’t divide them into bad and good because I consider it too simple. Besides, a developer can not be bad a priori. Today I will show up the difference between good and great developers. Are you intrigued? Below there are two stories about one day from the life of good and a great developer. I hope that on the example of these stories you will understand that thin borderline between them.

Good developer

«The alarm clock rings at seven. What the hell? Just give me some time to become a normal person. I know that I have to go to the office and start my work at eight, but I need some more sleep, please. I have finished college few years ago and I thought my morning sufferings are over, but parent’s money is also over. I was quite a good student and programming was relatively easy for me, so I started to learn more and more and began my career in the IT association.

Mind understands that I have to wake up but body doesn’t listen. No, man, gather yourself in one whole piece of human and get out from your bed. Yes, time management. Time management for developer is everything, because if you don’t stuck to it, you’ll turn into something that you are working with — a machine. Elon Musk said that in future he wants to link the human brain to the computer. At this moment my front-end developer’s tear slowly falls from my eye. I always joke that front-end is the path to the dark side. Front-end leads to HTML. HTML leads to scripting. Scripting leads to suffering. Nevertheless, I (try to) stay positive in all situations.

Already eaten my breakfast, which consists of coffee with coffee. I’ll see how long the caffeine energy will keep me above the table and not with my sleeping head on it. I prefer not to waste my time on public transport and getting to work through jungles of hurrying people in the mornings, so I have rented a flat near the place where I work.

I come to the office a bit earlier. I like my colleagues, not all of them of course, but I have my own policy to treat everyone good. Besides, my communication skills allow me to avoid misunderstandings and scandals; instead of shouting I prefer to speak calmly.

Working day usually starts with a morning meeting. Our team leader gives us tasks and talks about existing problems. He is a good man. We had sincere conversations several times and it is not rareness that he asks for my opinion or to generate some ideas, what makes me feel flattered and gives a feeling of being important in this huge company. He inspires me to learn more every day.

I make an enormous effort in overcoming myself not to pay so much attention to social media because I feel like it slowly takes me to the bottom of degradation. Instead of it I try to read and at the same time I hate it. I can’t take the information from the books seriously as I am more an auditory learning type, still in such a way I train my willpower. I read programming literature, about new scripts, about everything new that appears in the development market, because being a developer means that you have always to learn new things and details stable.

What about my technical skills? I get remarks concerning my work rather rarely. I always try to check the final result in order to make my code clean and understandable.

After work I return home and finally give my mind and body a chance by having a desirable sleep.»

Great developer

«The alarm clock rings at six. That’s okay, I am used to wake up early. The day seems to be longer when you are an early bird and that means that you can have time to do more things. I feel a bit sleepy, but morning exercises return me the feeling of being alive. I need even a little bit of sport because of my mostly sitting lifestyle as a developer. During the day I don’t have much time for this, so mornings fit in the way I manage my time perfectly.

Sometimes I just can’t physically wake up this early, because I work all night long. I am a team leader in the IT association, which means I care not only about web or application development, but about financial, communicational, technical and other issues. Often the day time is not enough to solve all of the problems, that’s why the nights exist.

But being a programmer and working in the IT association doesn’t mean that the whole life consists of computers, codes, bugs, applications, liters of coffee and funny jokes about developers (but that too). First of all I am a human with my own sphere of interests, tastes and features of character and only then I am a developer. Determining and associating yourself only with the place where you work is not cool.

Already had my breakfast, which consisted of rice with meat. Less sleep means to eat good food in order to fullfill the lack of energy.

I come to the office and usually start my working day with a meeting. I have to assign responsibilities for all my co-workers and of course to cheer them up. I often speak to the colleagues personally because I have a desire to know better who I am working with. Such practice can give me a whole picture of the personality, so I can find the right method of approach to each person. Thus every team leader should understand that being close and open minded to your subordinates improves the inner microclimate at work and gives them a feeling of being important and needed. Conversations with leaders of the company really inspired me during times when I only began my career as a developer.

After all my colleagues know what they have to do during the day and I have some free time, I look for different IT events like conferences, brain storms, debates or few-days learning seminars that take place in my city and all over the country. Getting acquainted and talking with intelligent programmers, intercepting their experience whether it is good or bad, getting to know new useful information for developers will never be redundant for anyone. I am obsessed with learning everything new, only in such a way I can be a motivation for my co-workers to become always better and better.

As I am constantly working on the improvement of all of my skills from technical to communicational, formation my solid knowledge and widening my experience, my brain works not only with the help of logic and cold thinking. I have a well developed feeling of intuition which gives me a possibility to have a high level of understanding of algorithms and software architecture. I may say that it comes to you with the years of practice, but I can find bugs, feel where the problem is located and find solutions just intuitively.

What about my technical skills? Well, in this case I don’t think about someone who will check my code, I turn on the thinking like-a-user instead. While creating a mobile application or a webpage I always try to imagine myself in the user’s shoes, which pushes me to make more effective and creative decisions. It doesn’t matter how hard and how long you have to work on your project, how much time you have to spend to find a little damn bug in the most simplest line. The matter is that the end-user must be satisfied and feel free to use your final product.

After such a good working day I return home tired but mentally inspired and let myself to have a rest.»

What are you thinking about after reading about these two developers? Without doubt I will say that both are good in what they are doing. But do you feel that line between them? What makes a good developer being good and what makes a great developer great?

From my point of view, even the words «good» and «great» have their own no hidden meaning. The word «great» itself gives a feeling of something inspirational, amazing and truly ambitious.

Let’s make a comparison of both good and great developer based on the two short stories.

Good developer wakes up early not to be late for work; great developer wakes up early to make progress in more things.

Good developer eats to fill his stomach; great developer eats to have energy for brain.

Good developer knows his work well, but great developer cares not only about work, but about his interests outside the office.

Good developer have excellent communicational skills; great developer can motivate and inspire to do more.

Good developer is able to learn new information and has a desire to become better; great developer is really obsessed and passionate about developing.

Good developer has good technical skills and measures his success with quantity of remarks that he receives; great developer has good technical skills, but doesn’t think about someone who will check his code, he thinks about final product and the feelings of the end-user.

Good developer returns home after work and feels exhausted; great developer returns home and analyses what has happened during the day and how to make the next day brighter.

Do you feel the difference now? It seems to me that now it is quite obvious. What else I would like to add to all the existing information is the fact that I consider to be one of the best things about great developers. I find it the leading feature that they don’t need to have any supervision or control over everything. They just feel their responsibility, know what to do, all what they take responsibility for works good and in fair conditions. And the most amazing thing is they don’t have to try that much, everything they are doing is very natural and at ease.

Conclusion

So guys, let’s summarize everything written above. Good developer’s main features are:

· good communicational skills

· ability and desire to learn new

· time management

· expertise making and code checking

· positivity

Great developer possesses all that a good developer has, plus the following traits:

· real obsession and passion for development

· well developed intuition

· wide experience

· no supervision

· ability to be a leader and a mentor

· being able to think about the end-user and final product

Thank you for your interest in this topic! I wish you to develop yourself constantly and try to reach the level of a great developer. Be as interested and passionate as you are. Stay safe!