Every developer wants to get better at coding. But they sometimes don't know how and feel stuck. The good news is that there are a few simple ways to improve coding skills that many developers neglect. Most can be done as part of a regular job, so they don't require additional time. And doing them consistently can make you a better coder.

Code reviews

Code reviews are the easiest way to learn from others. Unfortunately, many developers treat code reviews as a chore. They want to spend as little time as possible on them. This way, they lose great learning opportunities.

What makes code reviews special is their interactivity. They allow asking the author about their choices and discuss alternatives they considered. Other participants often leave interesting comments or propose novel alternative solutions.

Reading other developers' code

I learned a lot about programming by reading code written by other developers. I often want to know how a feature or library I use works. Usually, the fastest way to get this information is by inspecting its code.

For instance, TypeScript supported some features, e.g., async/await, before they were added to JavaScript. I was curious how it was possible. So, I wrote short TypeScript snippets and checked how they were transpiled.

Your company's codebase is another great resource to learn from. When I get stuck, I often search my company repository to check how other developers solved a similar problem. Our repo is big, so if I can't find anything useful, I am almost sure what I am trying to do is questionable.

I use the same strategy for my side projects but search GitHub.

If you find reading other developers' code challenging (I sure did), take a look at this post.

Debugging

Stepping through the code, analyzing the stack trace, and inspecting variables will allow you to understand important nuances and easy-to-miss details much deeper. I often fire a debugger if I can't answer all my questions after reading the code.

"Borrowing" code

Let's be honest. Not all code needs to be written from scratch. Sometimes, we just need a boilerplate. But sometimes, we don't know how to solve a problem. In these cases, copying and adapting code is often faster (and easier). It could be the code you wrote in the past or someone else's code, e.g., copied from StackOverflow (I have yet to find a software developer who never copied code from StackOverflow.) AI-powered programming tools are built on this idea. Tools like Github Copilot ask you to constantly vet and adapt the code they generate. Here is the thing, though. You'll learn nothing if you don't try to understand why the code you copied works or can't correctly adapt it.

Programming contests

Advent of Code taught me a lot. It is a light programming contest that takes place every December and consists of a series of small programming puzzles that can be solved in any programming language. I find it an excellent way to keep my coding skills sharp.

Solving Advent of Code problems is a good exercise, but examining other participants' solutions is where the real learnings are. And quite frankly, it can be a humbling experience. The different ways and techniques the participants use to solve the problems can be astonishing. I remember being proud of my ultra-short, 30-line-long solution, only to see someone else solve the same problem in the same programming language with just two lines of code because they used a clever idea.

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