rockyourcode: What All New Software Developers Need to Know, Algorithmic Problem Solving Approach

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Here are the articles from last week:

What All New Software Developers Need to Know

Published on: 2021-12-16

tags: Lab, Notes

Here are the bulletpoints from the ~ 30 minute video What All New Software Developers Need To Know by Dave Farley.

Nobody Knows Everything

Everyone is a junior in something. It’s OK to say “I don’t know”.
Apply “Engineering Thinking” to Solving Problems

Learn from your failures.
Make Progress in Small Controlled Experiments

Get comfortable with not knowing. Always work in small steps.
Be Suspicious of Your Ideas and Guesses

Always test your assumptions.
Seek Mentors

Look to chose your own boss. Interview the organization you apply to.
Seek Out Pair Programming
Find Like Minds

Go to meetups, find open-source projects to contribute to.
Don’t Be Obsessed With Tools

Software development is about understanding the problem we are working on. Develop the skills to analyze problems. Talk to other people, make diagrams.
Focus on the Problem You Are Solving

Your real job is not coding.
Write Lots of Code - Play With It

Explore. Try coding exercises.
It’s About Thinking, Not Typing!

Learn the fundamentals and apply them. Learn test-driven-development.
Fundamentals Are More Important Than Tools

Tools come and go, but the fundamentals stay.
Language & Frameworks Should Be Incidental

Spend some time to learn them, but look for the deeper, profound skills.
Solving Problems > Design > Coding > Language & Frameworks
TDD Focus Maintain Focus on the Problem & Improves Design Quality
Take Coupling/Dependencies Seriously
Concurrency Requires Caution
Optimise for Learning & Discovery
Work Iteratively

Gather feedback.
Work Incrementally

Make progress as a series of experiments.
Be Empirical

Observe. Evaluate ideas in the real world.
Optimise to Manage Complexity

Create modular systems. Improve cohesion. Separation of concerns. Manage Coupling. Use abstractions.

Source

What All New Software Developers Need To Know by Dave Farley

Algorithmic Problem Solving Approach

Published on: 2021-12-14

tags: Lab, Notes

I bought the course JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures Masterclass a while ago because I feared that I needed to do algorithm challenges when applying for a job. Luckily, that was not the case.

It’s still a useful resource and I liked the tips for solving problems.

The tips come from the book How to Solve It by George Polya. It’s a book on mathematics, but the principles apply to programming, too.

1. Understanding the Problem

Can I restate the problem in my own words?
What are the inputs that go into the problem?
What are the outputs that should come from the solution to the problem?
Can the outputs be determined from the inputs? Do I have enough information to solve the problem?
How should I label the important pieces of data that are a part of the problem?

2. Concrete Examples

Coming up with examples can help you understand the problem better. Examples provide sanity checks: user stories and unit tests.

start with simple examples
progress to more complex examples
examples with empty inputs
examples with invalid inputs

3. Break It Down

Use pseudo-code or code comments. In an interview, explain the steps you want to take without worrying about details like language syntax.

4. Solve the Problem (or Solve a Simpler Problem)

If you can’t solve the complete problem, try to solve a simplified version.

5. Look Back and Refactor

Can you check the result (does it work)?
Can you derive the result differently?
Can you understand it at a glance?
Can you use the result or method for some other problem?
Can you improve the performance of your solution?
Can you think of other ways to refactor?
How have other people solved this problem?

Dec. 21, 2021, 6:20 p.m.