5 Basic Things Super Coders Need to Learn

1) Have a great portfolio I have spoken about this in other articles but here is a quick recap.

There are 3 ways of saying you can do things they are.
.
. a) The things you say you can do b) The things you intend to do c) The things you have done I believe the last one is the most important.

And in most of my career evaluating other developers that we would take onto a team 'c' would reign supreme.

I think this is a very human thing simply because it doesn't take a lot of effort to fulfil the first two criteria it's just talking after all. However the last one takes time and dedication. With that in mind if you have actually 'done' things with software then it is really important to be able to prove this.

There are many ways to do this I usually suggest the following.
.. Build your profile on Stackoverflow - If you know a little then start answering questions about it on this forum. It doesn't matter if you don't get the correct answer awarded you will still get the visibility and you may get 'upvotes'. Publish all of your best work on Github - All great developers will take pride in their work and for this reason you should be able to show it in a transparent means.
Github is an open source repository that will allow you to do just that.
Deploy a website to Appharbor - This continuous integration platform will allow you to have a free account hosted on a subdomain with a sql database.

Learn how to get your apps onto it for maximum exposure. Having your apps live will increase the chances that people use them if they use them congratulations you are now a developer and you will stand a good chance of getting a job.
2) Be curious It's really important to be vigilant over the minds natural tendency to 'just get the job done'. Be mindful of this in your daily tasks, learn when you are drifting into this mindset and correct. You should be interested enough in problems that you want to know them in their entirety.

This may mean you need to take some things home and read up on them in your own time.

This will be to the ultimate benefit of your career.
3) Be a great communicator THE most important thing in a cross functional software team is that you can articulate your ideas and you show a high level of respect and transparency with your team. Try not to compete with your team instead be a leader and help fill the gaps. You will get further with this attitude. 4) Learn to pride yourself on the code not written Become critical of problems, discuss, deliberate and obsess over problems before trying to rush in and fix them, but don't get caught in the headlights you will have to start the task at some point! The best way to be critical is to discuss problems and solutions with your team. You will uncover a lot of issues through communication meaning you can avoid creating parts of a solution that is not needed. Constantly be evaluating what you are doing and asking yourself (do I need to do this?) 5) Get a keen eye for design and learn Photoshop It can't be said enough that responsive design and flatui represent an emerging trend with web applications.

A developer that is working on a beautiful interface will have a better regard for the code. The code serves the user interface not the other way round.

An app is useless unless it's useable. Learn a bit about design and the basics behind Photoshop and you will be a more useful asset to a team, they will like your creative flair.