When I first got into programming (started with java/android, building nonsense soundboard apps), I just wanted things to work. I didn’t care about fundamentals or why certain aspects of the code were written a certain way. My whole mentality/workflow was essentially:
if kind_of_working:
print('Awesome dude! Upload it to the app store!')
else:
print('Search stackoverflow for answers until it works!')I fast forward to today, and I realize I’ve kind of been doing the same thing with Python. Don’t get me wrong, my workflow these days is nothing like it was back then, but I still tend to only focus on what is needed to make my code work properly. For instance, when working with APIs I typically just skim the documentation to find what I need and move on. This weekend was the first time I actually sat down and really read a book about client/server relationships, authentication, webhooks, oauth and more.
This made me realize I need to fill in the gaps in my programming knowledge. It also made me recognize that just because you know how to write the code doesn’t mean you truly understand what it is doing behind the scenes. This knowledge might not be necessary to get your app working but the more I look at the senior roles available on job boards, I see how important it is.
In order to become a better developer, I am going back and really taking the time to learn more about the things that I thought weren’t important when I was just trying to deploy code quickly. Because:
knowing_how_it_works != kind_of_knowing_how_it_works
