alt Hacker NewsThe bottleneck they feel during coding is the lack of knowledge. Knowledge of the technical platform and knowledge of the deeper implications of the task’s requirements.
I’ve mentored juniors and the common trait is that they rush to code without understanding, then they spend days trying to fix things. Coding will seem like a real bottleneck for them.
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Is this a remake of "just spend 15 days near a whiteboard, then write the code and it will be awesome" ?
Have you ever heard of the V model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-model) ?
Long story short: it does not work, because the act of coding adds new valuable inputs that alters the (original) design.
One might say "you just have to know", which is an equivalent to "you just have to figure out the future", "you just have to be perfect" and other non-sense (which does explain why V cycle does not work, high inefficient, low quality outcome, bad method)
> I’ve mentored juniors and the common trait is that they rush to code without understanding, then they spend days trying to fix things.
As a senior (of sorts), even though I don't quite rush to code, I often find myself starting to code something 'naively', while my understanding is lacking (typically in a tangled, inconsistent and poorly documented codebase). But what probably sets me apart from juniors is how I handle getting stuck, or rather what it means for me to try to "fix things". I spend time thinking about what I've discovered that has gotten me stuck, what I must take into account, and how I should alter my approach (or refactor the existing code to be more accommodating).
Sometimes I manage to formulate ideas apriori that reduce the frequency of my getting stuck, and/or the extent to which I need to backtrack. But - not always.