Sharing some thoughts on what a good/successful programmer should consider

1. Programming Pillars

2. Nobody is perfect
Accept the following two truths:
 Everything you do will be based on someone
else’s work
 There will always be someone better than you

3. Why
Why are you doing what you’re doing?
Wealth
Turf
Vanity

4. What does it mean to be “Good”
In the old days: LAMP
 5 points in Linux
 10 points in Apache
 15 points in MySQL
 15 points in Javascript
 20 points in CSS
 35 points in PHP (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, Wix, Prestashop, Magneto, & Bitrix)
= 100 points
(squarespace allows no server-side code; Shopify is Ruby; blogger is python – and that’s the top 10 CMS’s from
2019)

5. What about now?
 Linux
 Apache/Nginx
 SQL
 HTML5/CSS
– UI/UX
– Accessibility
 MVCs
– Catalyst/Moose/Perl
– Django/Python
 Gitlab/CI
 Virtualisation
– Virtualbox
– Docker/Docker-
compose
– Kubenetes/helm
 Puppet
 Rancher/Kubectl
 Angular/TypeScript

6. Plan for Tomorrow
 Think beyond the immediate need
 Don’t box yourself in
 “The best use of your data will be thought of by
someone else”

7. Reduce Your Workload
 Write good documentation
– Documentation is to stop idiots asking stupid
questions
 Write useful comments
– Comments are to remind you what the clever
code does
 Automate, Cooperate, and Share
– Reflected glory isn’t such a bad thing

8. Eat Your Own Dogfood
If you don’t use it....
 why should anyone else?
 why would you maintain it?
 Why did you write it in the first place?

9. Show Off
 Share your code
 Make mistakes, and accept critique graciously
 Help others
 Talk about it
 Do you really think this is an original idea?

10. The Four Pillars For Programmers
Plan for Tomorrow
Reduce Your Workload
Eat Your Own Dogfood
Show Off