
If You Want to Be a Senior Developer, Stop Focusing on Syntax - kiyanwang
https://medium.com/better-programming/if-you-want-to-be-a-senior-developer-stop-focusing-on-syntax-d77b081cb10b
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whalesalad
I totally understand the message the author is trying to convey - but I don’t
think throwing syntax under the bus is the right approach. That would be like
telling an aspiring writer to stop focusing on grammar and punctuation.

I think the real takeaway is something that has been echoed more and more
recently: we only have so many cognitive cells in our battery and one must
choose their battles wisely.

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gitgud
Some engineers will _StackOverflow_ their way through the company until
they're a senior engineer, then they don't even have to know the language....
A common mindset:

" _Why should I learn the language, syntax, ecosystem etc... When I can just
Google my problem_ "

It's amazing we live in an age where anyone's programming problem can be
solved through a simple query to the Google...

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MathCodeLove
There is significant value in being able to understand what one needs to
google to begin. Then from there it is not as trivial as it may seem to
determine the most appropriate answer, and then to adjust that answer to work
within your code base.

You seem to be speaking of this behaviour in a way that implies negativity. Of
course it is bad is a Sr. Dev truly can't write any original code, but there's
nothing wrong with the vast majority of ones codebase being snippets of
solutions from the internet. As a matter of fact this method likely saves the
company that employs the developer a good deal of time and therefore, money,

~~~
gitgud
There's a lot of value in StackOverflow, but it basically teaches programmers
_error-driven development_ where you stumble through a problem by mindlessly
Googling errors until you've cobbled something together that works...

Even Joel Spolsky (creator of SO) has brought up some negative impacts of
StackOverflow (on his old podcast at some point), saying nobody needs to learn
anything anymore, just jump into the code and google the error messages.

I'm guilty of this too, I just think it's a shame that Googling is preferable
over _learning_...

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thawaway1837
I’m curious if you programmed professionally before SO.

I feel the average junior developer’s, or even senior developer’s, for that
matter, code was a lot worse than the average SO response, which has now
become the baseline for all types of devs, so their code is at worst as bad.

~~~
jasonlhy
I think the main reason is many developer lacks the skill of systematic
learning. Never attempt to read the basic manual / document and understand the
basic theory behind the technology

