

Ask HN: Where's the best place to hone your coding skills? - adrianparsons

I'm in the middle of a job search; I've talked to tiny startups, medium startups and bigcos. I'm wondering: where did you really develop your coding skills? What really made the difference? If I want to develop serious coding skills, what should I look for in a company?
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acron0
One of the biggest markers of quality I've found in the handful of companies
I've worked for is in their approach to new languages. Ask every company why
they use the language they do. Answers like 'Oh, because we just always have'
tend to mean they aren't really interested in the developing world of CS.
Which also means they won't appreciate people who want to extend themselves
outside of what's already being done.

I've been lucky enough to work at places that have allowed me to investigate
solutions to problems using the languages that are most appropriate and that
enabled me to learn a lot. During the times I was being stiffled (and I never
stayed at those places long) I had no choice but to do stuff in my own time.

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sc68cal
Start contributing to an open source project.

