How to work with syntax other than your own

Hey readers!

So I just had a thought. Basically, everybody has a forte in what they do. Some are good at C# but can be rusty at Kotlin for example. Others are just plainly good at C.

We have to understand the whys. First of all, it is the experience that was gained in order to build something. Secondly, remember that they have been in the shoes of being a junior once before. Third, they’ve done it so many times to the point where they don’t need to think about it anymore.

Software engineering as a profession is also a practice. Developers begin to understand things better by repetition . Syntax also is a factor of that.

For example. When I first started my job at Keeper Security, I did not know anything about Reactive Extensions at all. After months of using it and practicing along, I became a lot more familiar with it and started to like it a lot more.

This past week, I was glad to have the ability of taking on another project that was different from my main one. It incorporated C# with a mix of C++ in it. Since I haven’t used pointers in a long time, this was a very nice refresher. Even though the effort was small, the impact on the other developer that had more experience with the project was nice enough to keep him productive.

How did I prepare myself? I read up on using pointers. Though I had close to zero-knowledge of the project by itself, I just asked very basic questions of what the project needed, why things have to be implemented this way or that way, and then formed a solution once the idea was clear. Afterwards, it was just going through documentation, or code samples from StackOverflow to get things working on-the-fly.

Therefore, taking things slow and then beginning to understand things is a great way to start. Just following along with the process eventually will lead you down to a stronger developer.

Until next time!

Brian.