Sharpening Our Tools
As we study and put our programming knowledge to practice, we acquire a variety of tools we use regularly. These tools help us to become more efficient developers. Although we might be busy with several projects or learning new tech, we also need to maintain and sharpen the tools we use.
We might have a favorite code editor or a particular method of committing code on GitHub. We might also have some go-to debugging techniques or particular array methods that we are most comfortable using. Let’s take these tools to the next level to help us grow as developers.
Here’s a simple plan to get started:
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Identify the tools we want to sharpen. Make a list of tools or add some questions about those tools for further exploration.
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Find some resources to learn more about these tools. These can be YouTube videos, blog posts, courses, or the documentation.
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Determine a block of time to focus on this. Decide if this is a daily activity for 15 minutes a day or a weekly practice for 2 hours on the weekends, for example.
Some examples of how to put this plan into action
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Open up a repository on GitHub and take a look at all the possible features and settings. Make changes and look up any features that seem unclear.
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Watch a video and test out different ways to utilize Chrome or Firefox Developer Tools.
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Learn new code editor keyboard shortcuts.
This is a chance to explore and tinker with the tools we use. Carrying on this habit helps us use tools to an advanced level.
Is this something you already do? Or are you trying to implement something like this on a regular basis? Please share any experiences, ideas, questions, or comments!
Photo by Safar Safarov on Unsplash