“Yes! It’s the Knight Rider satnav!”
This sounds cheesy in the extreme, but I want one anyway. 
Archive for 23rd June 2008
“The Ultimate Code Kata”
Jeff Atwood has a good article on using practice-programming to continually hone your programming skills:
Contrary to what you might believe, merely doing your job every day doesn’t qualify as real practice. Going to meetings isn’t practicing your people skills, and replying to mail isn’t practicing your typing. You have to set aside some time once in a while and do focused practice in order to get better at something.
I continually stretch my programming skills, seeking out new and better ways of doing things and trying to find ways to incorporate them into my code. When the project I’m working on doesn’t lend itself to that sort of thing, or I find a neat-sounding technique that doesn’t fit with whatever I’m doing, I write a small test program to play with it, or (if I can’t immediately spare the time) make a note to do it later. I’d like to practice with another programmer as he suggests as well, but I just don’t know that many personally, and none of the ones I do seem to have the interest (or the time) for “mere” practice.
Designing and writing software isn’t something I do to make a living, it’s something I do because I love doing it. Being able to make a living at it is merely icing on the cake.