There I was this morning in a state of almost perfect sensory deprivation, by which I mean scrolling thru social media, when all at once an extraordinary thing happened: I noticed something!
It was something that I have seen before. It was something that I will see again.
Programming languages change.
Programming tools change.
But programming is very much about fashion and style, not just pure utility.
If we think about programming as style, we can find elements that in fashion would be considered timeless or classic.
The most important skill for writing code is to be able to read code.
It does not matter if the code is your own, hand-crafted by artisans, found on the Internet, created by collaborators, or generated by whatever means.
You must be proficient at reading and comprehending code.
Otherwise you will not understand it and will not be able to extend it or fix it when it breaks.
But software development is not just about writing code.
The most important skill for software development is to understand what solution we are trying to create.
It is about what we are trying to get the code to do.
The purpose of why this code should even exist or if it even should.
This will involve communicating with other human beings, very likely involving imperfect means, and a lot of ambiguity.
You must be proficient at listening.
Not just waiting for your turn to speak but actively listening.
It doesn’t hurt to take notes.
This is both helpful as a mnemonic and also to help people feel like you are actually paying attention.
If the purpose of software development is to help improve the human condition, we need both code that we can understand, and to understand the reasons for the code.
