What are your values? Have you ever thought of what makes you you as a developer? Are you satisfied with them?
Everyone has ideals. Everyone has aspirations. Everyone has self-expectations. And every developer have some instilled values. The things we uphold without thinking much about it. I just realized what mine really are.
I always try to leave the code in a better shape than I found it in and I dont repeat myself.
Thats my two core values. They are not really actively chosen, rather they’ve been instilled in me unknowingly by myself. I only just yesterday realized what they are. Having these values does not mean I 100% always adhere to them, but they are defining in how I work and I will do a lot to uphold them. They both imply that I hold refactoring high — and I really do.
There are a lot more i actively try to do, succeed in, and things I truly enjoy. Like creating good software design, writing efficient code, keeping on top of the bleeding edge, keeping deadlines, documenting and all sorts of efforts we all do. I also have a lot of aspirations, like being awesome at a development problem x or domain knowledge y. But, none of those are my core values. I can change them, I can add and subtract any day. My values on the other side are close to immutable.
Not repeating myself is actually the number #1 reason why I am a developer today. I wanted to automate stuff on IRC so I didn’t have to do it manually (repeating myself)! That value probably precedes owning my first computer.
Make her happy
I am satisfied with my values, but I still want to add a third value: Make her happy. I use her to describe a customer, a requestor of my work. My values are skewed towards the technical — peer-part — of the table, and I believe I should focus slightly more on making requestors happy as well, putting smiles on their faces.