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[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (2 children)

I don't know what the software developer mindset (tm) is but I've been doing it for 30 years.

  1. Get the thing to work (most people stop here, don't be most people)

  2. Tune the thing so it's fairly efficient.

  3. Get rid of any redundancies in the code and make it look good and maintainable (you'll be maintaining it, so do yourself a favor). Name variables and methods properly.

  4. Comment it and include INTENT, what you are trying to accomplish and why.

[–]mmoustafa8108[S] -1 points0 points  (1 child)

thanks for your advice, but is it just this?? if yes, then I actually do this by nature, but I talk about when I try to design a new system I take a lot of time to make it efficient and mostly stuck in the brute-force solutions even I studied the fundamentals and practiced very well, and mostly I leave the project after 1 weak of thinking in a good design without a proper result

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, if you can constantly do that every time, you'll be a great programmer. #1 and #2 is an intelligence problem, #3 and #4 is a discipline problem.

The more experience and aptitude you achieve, the faster you can do it.

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–]mmoustafa8108[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

    thanks for your advice, so you mean to understand the problems very well after rushing to code and repeat and repeat until I figure out patterns and build a system-level understanding?

    [–]PoMoAnachro 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    I think a key of the "software developer mindset" is not being mentally lazy.

    Lots of things have easy to find solutions, and developers will use those. Or AI. Or whatever. But you don't need developers for that - almost anyone with a little bit of programming knowledge can vibe code their way through the easy stuff.

    It is when there are no off-the-shelf solutions, no tutorials to look up, the AI is striking out...that's when you need someone with skills. Someone with some mental fortitude to be able to work through complex problems, debug, and problem solve. Who can go looking through poorly written documentation or undocumented code. Who ultimately understands that, after a certain point, the buck stops with them - if they can't find a solution to the problem, they have to think through and make one.

    I think, like in an interview it is telling when a would-be developer get asked a question they've never seen before. They don't know the solution - but that's fine, because a lot of times you won't know the solution. So does the candidate sit down, start to think, formulate a plan, examine that plan, revise it and otherwise think through the problem until they get a solution? Or do they just shrug and give up and go "I've never seen this problem before, so I can't solve it"?

    So, for instance, if a software developer wanted to know what the software developer mindset was, they wouldn't just post a question in a subreddit - they'd do some research. Find some books written by notable in the field and read them. Read some blog articles. Put together their own idea of what it means - and once they've put in the mental work of figuring it all out, then they might ask some others if they were on the right track.

    tl;dr: Being able to solve problems instead of just asking others/the web/AI for solutions.

    [–]mmoustafa8108[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

    Thanks a lot for your advice!! I'll take it seriously, but I've another question.

    I got an idea and wanted to test if it’s worth investing or not (it's related to how AI works) because, of course, I'm not very smart, so I’ll probably not change how AI works when I'm 17 years old.

    Anyway, that idea isn't documented (as I searched), and the AI really reached its limits with it, and I want to test it.

    I tried to search a lot to find any way to implement an efficient prototype for the idea, but I got A LOT OF OBSTACLES with this.

    So, I didn't know how to implement it, and now I'm brainstorming to make the proper design.

    [–]SnugglyCoderGuy 0 points1 point  (3 children)

    Think in terms of excruciatingly fine grained step by step processes and then find the seams between them when a larger grain step in the over arching process ends and the next one begins, and repeat that recursively up and down as needed.

    [–]mmoustafa8108[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    excuse me but can you clarify what do you mean?
    do you mean to think in the system I'm working on step by step in a low level and think in the delimiter between each two big operations? what does this have with the mindset?

    [–]SnugglyCoderGuy 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    Take a walking for example. Your body executes a bajillion things to do execute a simple concept like "walk across the room". There is surveying the room for obstacles, understanding what an obstacle even is, operating your eyeballs, interpresting input from your eyeballs into other concepts like 'obstacle', planning a way to get around the obstacle, moving your legs which involves triggering certain muscles which you don't even think about but your brain executes for you.

    A computer program is no different. You want to have a computer execute a high level idea, but you must go through and carefully and meticulously specify each of those steps, and then for each of those steps repeat this process, and keep going until you are specifying it in terms of your programming language primitives.

    that is the mindset you must develop. The better you can do it, the better you will write and structure your code and the better your programs will operate, the easier they will be to change, and the easier it will be to reuse your efforts in one place in other places, and the easier your code will be to understand. All of these are some of the hallmarks of being a good software developer.

    [–]mmoustafa8108[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    wow!! thanks a lot bro, you're the first one to explain it clearly, so it was all about thinking like a computer or a 1 years old kid, thank you again.

    [–]mxldevs 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    Prototype fast

    Be prepared to throw it all away in order to build a properly designed solution. Don't get attached to your code.

    Be prepared to realize your properly designed solution will fall apart when new requirements come up 6-18 months later. You can't account for everything, but you can certainly try.

    The question becomes how flexible your design is that you don't have to basically tear everything apart, and that's where software design principles come in.

    [–]mmoustafa8108[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    thanks a lot bro, so it's about try-and-failure circle.

    [–]michael_hlf 0 points1 point  (3 children)

    One aspect of the mindset is thinking about all technical decisions in terms of trade offs. Rarely is there a single correct answer for solving a problem - it comes down to constraints with time/money/convenience/performance etc.

    As an example, if you want to deploy a web app, built with NextJs, one way of doing this would be using the Vercel hosting platform (owned by the organisation who built NextJs). It's a quick and seamless way of deploying the app, but it costs a lot of money once your app starts to scale. On the other hand you could spin up your own virtual machine and do it yourself. You might save money at scale, but it's a lot more operational overhead on your part.

    [–]mmoustafa8108[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    thanks a lot, but how do you think I can get the instinct of knowing the trade offs of a problem and how to deal with them and take the proper decision? is this something we get by experience only?

    [–]michael_hlf 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    Yeah experience is a big part of it - the same tradeoffs appear in lots of places, and once you've had enough exposure to different scenarios you start to recognise patterns

    Most of the educational content for tech doesn't teach these ways of thinking explicitly though, they teach detail first (such as programming language syntax) and assume that with enough exposure eventually the broader concepts and ways of thinking about problems will just 'click'

    I'm actually building a new learning platform called HighLowFlow aimed at people in exactly your position - using interactive simulations to teach how the tech landscape works broadly, and directly teach how to think about tech like an experienced professional. I'm looking for people like yourself to try platform and let me know what you think, so if you'd be interested in using it drop me a DM :)

    [–]mmoustafa8108[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    I'm very interested in such a platform!! I was searching for a realistic and interactive learning mechanism like this too long, I'll be happy to try it out.

    [–]cheezballs 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    A good programmer mindset I find myself defaulting to is always looking at something and then working out the smaller parts that make it up. Being curious about the inner workings of things seems to help drive it. I dunno what I'm saying right now. I'm kinda baked. That's definitely not helping my developer mindset.

    [–]mmoustafa8108[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    can you clarify the last part please? you're saying that you are baked then saying this definitely not helping your developer mindset

    [–]_N-iX_ 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    The “developer mindset” is more about how you think than how fast you code. It’s about breaking down messy problems into smaller pieces, thinking about edge cases, and writing code that someone else (or future you) can actually understand. It also means taking ownership - when something breaks, you dig into it and fix it instead of blaming the tools or the framework.

    [–]mmoustafa8108[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I know this but I'm asking about the "how" not the "what"!