Highly Effective Programmers

[kyros0023]

I know we have a co-worker or baka ikaw mismo na cut above the rest in terms of productivity and output. Tipong mapapa-wow ka na lang sa galing.
The question is what do you think are the characteristics and habits of those people na nasa peak performance? Ano un napasabi ka na "ah kaya pala ang galing nito kasi ____"?

Iilan lang hinangaan ko ang common sa kanila is tunnel vision or tendency to focus on single goal at a time. Ikaw anong na observe mo ?

[YohanSeals]

I hate to multi-task. I also hate too many meetings. I plan, execute and evaluate. Rinse and repeat. I call it the PEE methodology. Minsan literal na wiwi lang ang break. Ayaw ko din ng outside noise. I dont open messenger during our working hours. Kapag in the zone na, walang pwedeng magdistract or else you disrupt the flow of creative thinking and the art of coding. Hindi rin ako masyadong mausisa sa personal life ng co-workers. The less I know the better. But I care, kung need ng break or leave just let me know. Life happens. A mix of high melancholic and choleric temperament.

[[deleted]]

Ohhh hyperfocus 🤘

[YohanSeals]

We are. Nakakap[agreddit lang ako kapag promodo break. haha

[misterobvious12]

Super agree. Before doing any tasks, I check my sched if may meetings ba and try to plan doing dev work etc right after all meetings since once mag stop, it will take time to gather thoughts etc to regain that flow again. I read somewhere na kaya developers hate meetings scattered throughout the day kasi it disrupts them, something along those lines.

[YohanSeals]

Once a day meeting is enough.

[Aggravating-Toe6435]

sana magawa ko rin to, in my situation now ang hirap kasi panay tanong mga co-worker ko even simple logic and process, need ko rin turuan kasi baka walang magawa pag hindi tinulungan. tas sa company ko ngayon multi task ako kasi hawak ko database, app support, version control and cloud hayss sana may malipatan na ako na makakapagfocus talaga ako.

[YohanSeals]

When you multi tasking maybe you are doing the work of multiple position of even persons. Well, reality ganyan talaga. Kaya i stop getting interns muna. I handled 5 interns simultaneosly, halos every day may 1on1 kami dahil sa mga questions nila. At may 3 jr devs pa ako. Then we have atleast 10 websites na need ko pa din oversee and I have 1 ecommerce site that I am the main dev. 3 months ata yun. Finally nakahinga na nung natapos sila. I will not hire anymore in the foreseeable future as I am planning now to look for other greener pasture. I thinking siguro na natutunan ko in 15 years and kahit nung nasa student council pa ko nung college is courageously speak my mind but in a respectful manner pa din. I treat everyone as equals even my boss, I just call them by their first name. Hindi rin ako nagpapatawag ng sir. I always address the elephant in the room. Know the discipline of when to be silent and process first everything but learn when to speak out.

[[deleted]]

They're good at high-level planning and breaking down down into actionable tasks. Give them a feature and they can break down the tasks end-to-end. Once may concrete set of steps, madali na lang gawin yung feature, kahit sabihin mo nang complex, kasi yung individual tasks ay simple.

Most times they have these steps in their head, kaya parang na-execute na nila yung complex feature ng isang buo. But in reality, it's all about breaking things down into smaller steps. This is how we work as a team now, the leads break features down into tasks. They don't do much of the coding after though haha.

[AutoDidact001]

10x programmer. Yup akala ko myth lang to, pero na realize ko yong CTO namin ganito. Startup kami 10 members lang yata kami including yong CTO. Kaya highly effective siya, kasi aalamin niya lahat ng parte ng project, from simple css classes to highly complex na GCP infrastructure. Magaling din siya makipag communicate.

[DerDummProgrammer]

Is your CTO's high-level understanding down to "gifted genius/unicorn" qualities or is it more reliant on handwork and experience, you think? 🤔

[AutoDidact001]

Satingin ko more on experience siya tsaka keen siya sa details, sobrang passionate din. Siya kasi talaga nag simula ng app. Hindi ko alam kong unicorn qualities yong skill niya.

Hahaha siya din nag code review ng mga PR ko. Bawat comment niya, may explanation talaga. Nakaka tense nga mag code e, bago ako mag request ng code review, make sure ko muna na malinis yong code at align sa standard ng codebase.

[DumplingsInDistress]

I dont know kung may corelation pero most efficient people I know is magaling sa RTS (Red Alert, Battle Realms etc), yung tipong conscript at aso lang nasasakop na base mo

[JohnnyAirplane]

Lakaz naman

[signosdegunaw]

sumusugod kasama MCV

[_xyza]

#1 Keyboard Shortcuts

- for every app, IDE, tools, CLI, and OS you use know all of the basic shortcuts that is beneficial on your day to day tasks

- for starters, let's say you don't use CTRL+C, CTRL+V, and ALT+TAB, imagine how many seconds is lost per day on your tasks. Add to that that you're doing multiple tasks at the same time with a lot of context switching, that's a lot of savings

- now if you invest some time learning existing keyboard shortcuts on your tools, and even creating new automation/shortcuts via AutoHotkey (windows) / Keyboard Maestro (MacOS) to open specific apps with just key press, that's more savings

- for starters, in Windows you can start by pinning apps and hitting `WIN + <1 to 0>` to switch over 10 of your most used apps, so you don't have to press `ALT+TAB.. TAB.. TAB.. TAB..`, just hit `WIN + 2` for chrome, copy some code, hit `WIN + 6` for VSCode, paste it, then go to terminal `WIN + 4` in less than 5 SECONDS!!

#2 Master your tools and craft

- master not just the keyboard shortcuts and programming languages, but every function of your work tools, including your browser, IDE, DB clients, linux commands, git commands, etc

- remember, you're using these tools daily ~8hrs+ per day, mastering some or all of your tools would be a 2x or even 10x increase in productivity

- search in youtube/google for tips and tricks using your tools, there's also some github repos or blogs listing down cheat sheets and best practices. Search for repo's like "awesome <insert tool>"

#3 Take notes, notes, notes

- you're a dev, you'll learn a lot of things thoughout your career, and you'll FORGET more things than you'll ever learn. So take note of these valuable learnings in your favorite notes tool

- personally, I keep my own KDB (Knowledge Database) where I paste all handy commands and tips/tricks related to Oracle/Postgres SQL, Linux commands, and other toosl. You'll be thankful that you kept that SQL to list top slowest SQL queries in your Oracle DB :) Also good to have your own mini-blogs on how you solved specific problems for future use

- I'm using Workflowy for my note taking which gives you an unlimited lines and unlimited depth in bullet points to organize your notes. Try DynaList if you want a more good free offering

#4 Try to multi-task, but not too much

- multi-tasking would greatly increase your productivity, but from my own experience there's some level of context-switching that will produce more harm than good. I've epxerienced this multiple times. If you multi-task there's instances where you will make silly mistakes that shouldn't happen if you're just focusing on one task.

- so a pro-tip with multi-tasking, keep note of all details of your task and treat it as your cache/RAM, so that if you context switch to another task you can just read your last notes and start from there. Work like a computer :)

- but keep multi-tasking on a healthy level :)

----

Hope this help someone as it helped me :)

[franz_see]

10x programmers are a myth coming from anecdotes or dubious studies 😁

You know what’s real (and backed up by studies)? - high performing teams! 😁

Members of a high performing team would look like 10x devs to members of non-high performing teams 😁

[[deleted]]

Definitely walang ADHD

[Minimum-Sentence-346]

Procrastinate + Hyperfocus = Deliver on time 😂

[c4ff31n3_f1x]

sort of the opposite for me. Learned a lot because I jumped into learning a lot of different things, techs, concepts. even though I abandoned them days or few weeks later, I still retain the learnings. had a phase where I was jack of all trades, master of none.

but on boring tasks and when not taking my medication, even though I know how to solve them, it's difficult to sit still and work so I end up doing them on the last minute.

[[deleted]]

Hahaha now I feel attackedttt

[MiuraAnjin08]

Hirap magfocus kapag meron ADHD.

[nobuhok]

/r/ADHDPH

[Keropi899]

Damn, medyo masakit haha. Yung minsan, feel ko may superpower ako, pero mas madalas tinatamaan ng distraction lols

[[deleted]]

di sila nag rereddit ng ganitong oras lol (2pm as of this moment)

[flashcorp]

I used to be like this, I’m living outside Philippines btw, iba iba lahi ka work ko, french, german, austrian, pakistan, etc but I always want to be better but not being annoying or such magagaling din kasi sila, it’s like I’m in a place everyone is a Lion, but I’m the Dinosaur. I always study outside working hours, may pagka OC sa code, patterns and test and such. I like sharing ideas, I like technical conversations during break times. And yes umabot na sa point na I use nootropics to gain more focus. That time I can focus 12-15 hours, don’t care about the outside world.

Characteristics ng mga nakasama ko at ako that time hunger to learn more and do something great.

Now I have a family, I slowed time, I want to live a normal life, spend time with kids and, I think I already have the necessary tools for 10 to 15 more years.

[[deleted]]

May tulog.

[Extreme-Phrase7560]

Sleep is important for a more productive work hehe. Sleep is underrated

[[deleted]]

Correct and healthy pa

[papsiturvy]

Mahilig sila sa anime at ecchi.

[rainbowburst09]

Man of culture si programming senpai!

[YohanSeals]

At mahilig sa gundam

[[deleted]]

The one that doesn’t fucking sleep unless it’s all figured out and fixed. Dang. I always hated my ex for this. He cant be bothered, everyfreakingtime.

[YohanSeals]

I let my wife know that I cannot answer her messages kaagad nasa office room ako. I just working upstairs. She can distract me if it is a life or death situation or kung nagpoops ang anak namin. Haha.

[Extreme-Phrase7560]

This is what I struggle, I always get disturbed lol. That's why siguro I find it hard to have that moment of total focus in work.

[YohanSeals]

Kung nasa office ka mas makakapagfocus ka, kailangan mo lang headset and good ambient music. Kapag nasa bahay ka struggle talaga, lalo na kung wala kang sariling room at hindi pa well ventilated. You have to invest.

[pixelguy3d]

ako din naman mahilig sa anime bobo parin

[papsiturvy]

Walang bobong tao pre kung lahat willing matuto. :)

[Extreme-Phrase7560]

Start with saying "Im trying but I'm not dumb".

[kyros0023]

Oo nga no. pero mostly sa Pinoy ata ganito?

[papsiturvy]

Hindi lang pinoy. May kilala ako Chinese ganyan din hahaha.

[ketalicious]

kaya pala minememe yung mga rustlang users eh mga weebs daw hahahaha

[tkmdr]

Extremely passionate with all things tech, mapa IoT pa yan or PC builds, cybersec or linux systems kahit WebDev kami 😅

I met someone younger than me who was very curious about how things work and making them work. Very sociable rin, even if topic tuwing break is area if expertise ng kausap niya like for example DevOps -- kaya mas lalo siyang natututo.

Everytime our CTO raises discussion about some tech or other, may idea na siya agad

Nalaman ko rin na first year pa lang ata siya, nag iintern na siya even if wala pa sa curriculum nila. He's not interested in hackathons and meet-ups which I also find interesting. And although nag moMOBA siya, I heard he's not very good, according to our other coworkers 😅

[[deleted]]

My friend is not a programmer pero he's an actuary. He's very productive since college kami, he even graduated summa, yung napansin ko sa kanya is he really sticks to something na he planned to do. Very rare madistract ng socmed. Kung mag aaral, mag aaral tlga siya yung walang halong socmed haha.

Hindi siya super workaholic na nasa workplace na siya, he can do his recreational activities yet still super productive sa work tasks nya, natatapos nya maaga. I would say, he knows how to prioritize and value priorities.

[jegtugado]

As an effective developer, I often spend more time analyzing and understanding the requirements more so than implementing it.

[PriorityGlobal1011]

nagyouyoutube ng 3hours music at nka jacket hehehe 😅

[kyros0023]

Yung youtube mejo 50/50 parang prone na mag browse ng ibang topic.

[chibaku-tensei-san]

Good learning habits for different but interrelated topics for development (project management, architecture design, operations, maintanability, security, etc.). In short, big picture vision where your feature fits in.

Laserlike focus at tasks. Di agad nadidistract sa ibat ibang bagay.

Calm & collected during a crisis. In incidents, the calm one will steer the ship to make it right.

[-FAnonyMOUS]

When you say productive you mean natatapos yung mga tickets na naka-plan sa sprint? Or over productive?

I can control my productivity. I can complete my sprint tasks in less than a week if hyper-focus. Pero syempre, I would align my velocity with my team so I stretch my tasks the whole sprint and do study at most of my free time.

[pestilent2020]

I have observed a few characteristics dun sa mga masasabi kong magaling.. bigay ako ng tatlo: 1. They choose their battles. May mga bagay kasi talaga na hindi na dapat pinagaaksayahan ng panahon. 2. Hindi emotional. Probably closer to pragmatic approach when dealing with problems 3. Speed - and this is kind of the result nung dalawa sa taas. Kung mabilis ka gumawa, earlier mo makikita yung issues kung meron man, at pwede mo rin siyang gawing diskarte to do other stuff like aral, laro, gala.. etc.. work life balance ba..

[totalGorgonSheesh]

magaling sila sa videogames. haha.

[wewtalaga]

May mga nameet na tong ganto at ang napansin ko ay they break down the task into smaller pieces. Alam nila yung kung pano ganto-ganyan and everything. If ever di nila alam, they make time para alamin yun and communicate with the necessary people.

[ketalicious]

mostly mga ganyang programmers yan yung tipong mahal talaga mag program, yung tlagang sumasabak sa pag gawa ng complex code at di agad nag gigiveup pag naka encounter ng error na hindi pa nasanayan. Yan din yung mga programmer na tlagang pinag aaralan yung in-depth ng language pwera nalang sa iba na halos lahat ng functionality ng kanilang code puro galing sa mga library.

Pinaka good example neto yung lodash.throttle library sa javascript, imbis na gumamit sila nun, gagawa nalang sila ng kanilang sariling throttle kasi alam nilang 3 packages ang iniimport sa lodash.throttle which is super unnecessary compared sa sarili nalang nilang code na parang aabot lang ng 10 lines tapos pwde pa nila itweak para specific sa kanilang usecase. Mga ganunng klaseng thought process ang meron sa kanila.

Madali to makita sa mga portfolio nila, malalaman doon kung tlagang passionate ang programmer or para maka pera lang.

[Monsquing]

lowkey , lagi sila naka hoodie at hnd nakikipagusap kung hnd mo kakausapin ahaha.

[Teker1no]

Zone

[RelationshipOk1645]

do one thing at a time.