Routines and practices followed by pro developers.

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Becoming a proficient developer takes a lot of time and concentrated effort and one of the proven ways to excel is to learn from the practices and routines followed by prominent and well-established developers.

Some of the habits practiced by pro developers are highly unpopular because they are tedious to follow and require one to put in a lot of time and effort.

However, mastering these habits does ensure growth in your existing skillset as well as guarantees you a better chance to establish yourself.

Coding is becoming a lot more common these days and even more so, due to the rise in data science and other such fields.

So the need for a differentiating factor is more vital than ever if you want to land a job or even go for freelancing.

Some of the habits and routines followed by pro developers are stated below:

1. Don’t repeat yourself.

This habit is useful when building large projects and is based on DRY.

This principle was first introduced in the book The Pragmatic Programmer.

The “Don’t Repeat Yourself” principle is a practice aimed at reducing the repetition of code, components, architecture, and other aspects that concern software development.

This approach is, in fact, easy to implement as most frameworks and libraries have great support for functions & components and even encourage code-splitting habits.

For instance, in React you can easily create a separate folder for reusable components such as a menu button and then reuse it everywhere in your project by simply importing it.

Even though this sounds simple, it is hard to implement in practice initially because you don’t really understand what components and code you might end up using.

Hence, I recommend planning and designing the end product as I’ll discuss later in this article.

2. Code every day

Coding every day can lead to some drastic improvements and is vital if you’re learning how to code or getting a grasp of new algorithms or languages.

It is worth noting that one of the most common myths surrounding this practice is that you have to spend a good chunk of your time in daily programming.

In practice, however, things are different as coding for as little as 15 minutes per day can also make it a habit, and at the same time, helps you foster your knowledge.

When I was learning web development, I decided to take the popular #100DaysOfCode challenge and aimed to code consistently, without even missing a single day for 100 consecutive days.

Although I wasn’t able to achieve and lost the challenge after just 56 days, my programming skills did improve tremendously.

Coding every day can also lead to potential career shifts and open doors for exciting opportunities.

3. Always keep learning

If you have already started your coding journey, you must be very well aware that the curriculum surrounding the world of software development and programming, in general, is dynamic and changes after a couple of years.

Today Node.js is very popular but after a few years, we might see Deno replacing Node completely.

Hence, being a developer is a lifelong learning journey and there is only constant i.e change.

You don’t need to learn every stack, algorithm, or framework out there but learning the prominent ones as well as keeping up with the modern practices and libraries followed in the industry can be a game-changer for you.

This habit is one of the most crucial factors in my opinion when it comes to separating good and great developers because if you never stop learning, you will end up getting invaluable experience in a lot of fields and technologies.

4. Planning the final product

Keeping the final product is very important before diving into code.

Oftentimes, we dive into side projects that stimulate us but end up leaving the project midway because we didn’t think it through.

This point is also connected with the first habit mentioned in the list — Don’t Repeat Yourself.

When you know and design the end product, you plan the color scheme, the button layout, the navigation menu style, and much more which can save you time as you mark the components that will be used in several places.

As you build more projects and plan them ahead, you will get a good understanding of libraries and patterns of development that goes into making various products.

Moreover, you will be able to write far more cleaner code.

5. Taking rest and avoiding burnout

Many times developers think they are getting bored of coding and losing interest but all they are feeling is burnout which is quite natural.

It is important to know what exactly burnout means. It is a state of physical and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged periods of stress or monotonous work.

We get burnout not only from coding but also from other activities that we do for a prolonged time without the slightest change.

In fact, it is very common and I see many developers take time off social media handles or side projects to make up for the exhaustion.

One key to avoiding burnout is listening to your body and mind. A great developer knows when to stop and take a break.

It is necessary to replenish your mind and interest and taking breaks or setting aside days to do something completely different from coding is a nice way to avoid burnout.

Final thoughts

We all have some developers that serve as our role models and we strive to be like them but the hard truth is that it requires patience, sacrifices, and above all, discipline.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Great developers spend countless hours mastering their craft and the only way to become a great dev, is to do the same.

I have discussed some of the core habits you should follow to get the best out of you but these habits can also be transferred to other fields.

For instance, building a habit to code daily can lead to a much more disciplined life and better time management.

While I have discussed habits that are related to the personality and routines of great developers, if you are interested in learning how you can improve technically, I have a blog on that too that might interest you. 5 Ways to Grow as a Developer Definite methods to up your game and advance your careerjavascript.plainenglish.io

Coding is a lifelong journey and you should always keep this in mind.

Hope you enjoyed reading my article!