如何成为“10倍效率”开发者

Brad Feld 的一篇文章 The Rise of Developeronomics 中提到了“10倍效率的开发者（10x developer）”的概念（伟大的开发者的效率往往比一般的开发者高很多，而不只是一点点），Adam Loving 在读了之后受到启发，并向多位大牛（Ben Sharpe、Collin Watson 和 Jonathan Locke）询问如何成为“10倍效率的开发者”，最后得到了以下的答案。

　　1. 只做需要做的工作 Only do the work that needs to be done

• 使用敏捷方法；
• 全心全意做 UX 设计；
• 沟通第一；
• 编码也许不是解决问题的办法；
• 过早的优化是一切罪恶的根源；
• 选择最简单的解决方案。

　　2. 站在巨人的肩膀上 Build on the shoulders of giants

• 使用开源框架；
• 使用简洁语言（如 HAML、Jade、Coffeescript）；
• 不要做重复的事情（不要重新发明轮子）；
• 利用包管理器来进行公共和私有代码分配；
• 不要任凭巨头（如微软）的摆布而修复库中的一个 Bug；
• 不要让你的雇主逼你学习；
• 自主学习并为自己设定新的目标。

　　3. 了解数据结构和算法 Know your data structures and algorithm

　　如果你不知道什么时候应该使用快速排序、不懂辨认O(n2)程序、不会写递归函数，你将无法成为 10 倍效率的开发者。使用多种语言你才能清楚不同的框架是如何解决相同问题的。尽可能去了解底层命令（plumbing），以便能够作出明智的决定（Web 框架是怎么存储 session 状态的？Cookie 到底是什么？）。

　　4. 不要怕买工具，它可以节省你的时间 Don’t be afraid of buying tools that save you time

　　Ben 说：“昨天我花 50 美元买了一个位图字体工具，它帮我节省的时间成本绝对超过 200 元。”

　　5. 集中注意力 Find focus

　　不要整天开着你的电子邮件、Twitter、Facebook 等，在工作时将它们最小化或关掉它们，戴上耳机。Tiny hack 说：“即使不听音乐我也戴着耳机工作，这样便不会有人打扰到我。”

　　6. 尽早并且经常性地进行代码重构 Refactor early and often

　　有时，你不得不放弃漂亮的代码转而去寻找真正对项目有用的代码，但没关系，如果你的现有项目中有这样的代码，最好的方式便是不要看它，并重构。

　　7. 只管去做  Just do it

　　将你的业余项目分享到 Startup Weekend 中。在我开始转到 Unix 和 Ruby on Rails 上之前，我买了一台 Mac，使用 Windows 虚拟机花了一年时间做 .NET 项目。

　　8. 挑选一个编辑器，并掌握它 Pick an editor and PWN it

　　高效开发者喜欢用文本编辑器胜过 IDE 编辑器，因为这样可以学到更多东西。无论什么情况，尽量使用键盘快捷键，因为熟练使用一件工具的前提是熟悉它。

　　在选择编辑器时，认真考虑并挑选最好的（Emacs 或 Vim），因为它们是通用的。其次，挑选你的首选平台最支持的。使用宏，不断地写代码；使用 Mac 上的 TextExpander 为整个段落创建快捷方式；使用 Visual Studio 或 SublimeText 的自动补齐功能；使用支持按行/列分割窗口的编辑器，这样你便能同时看到单元测试和代码（或模型、视图）。

　　一定要想清楚后再写代码。Adam 说，“我有朋友在一个大项目组里工作，他们组里最高效的程序员是一个高位截瘫用嘴叼着棍子敲代码的人，他总是在写代码之前想得很仔细且很少出错。”

　　9. 整洁的代码胜过巧妙的代码 Clearness beats Cleverness

　　要想让其他人能够读懂你的代码，尽量使用最少的代码来完成任务。遵循 DRY（Don't repeat yourself）的原则，使用明确定义的对象和库，将任务分解成小而简单的代码段。

　　10. 潜意识是强大的工具  Your sub-conscience is a powerful tool

　　离开 10 分钟往往就可以解决一个问题。控制编程时间，给自己一个多姿多彩的生活，劳逸结合能让你在工作时更高效、更愉悦。当然，即便是上了年纪的程序员也知道，以最少的时间完成最高效的工作是成为 10 倍效率开发者的必要条件。

　　作为一个程序员，我觉得在职业生涯中最好的一件事儿就是从电脑前站起来，去拜访那些在某一领域有所建树的人们。

　　11. 推动自身和团队进步 Refine your process as a team

　　重视批评，以包容的态度接受批评并提升自己是非常重要的事情。没有这个基础，你不可能成为一个高效的开发者。一位智者曾经说过：“聪明的人善于从自己的错误中学习，而智慧的人善于从别人的错误中学习。”

　　英文原文：http://adamloving.com/internet-programming/10x-developers

　　1. Only do the work that needs to be done. Use the agile process. Involve yourself in UX design. Communicate first. Coding might not be the solution. Premature optimization is the root of all evil. Choose the simplest solution that solves the problem.

　　2. Build on the shoulders of giants. Use open source frameworks. Use shorthand languages (HAML, Jade, Coffeescript) to go faster. Don’t re-invent the wheel. Leverage package managers for public and private code distribution. Don’t be at the mercy of Central Command (i.e. Microsoft) to fix a bug in a library. And don’t wait for your employer to let you learn it. Learn it on your own, and get a new job that pays twice as much.

　　3. Know your data structures and algorithms. Our profession is open to self taught tradesmen, but you can’t be a 10x developer if you don’t know when to use quick sort, identify an O (n2) routine, or write a recursive function. Be multilingual – so you can see how different frameworks solve the same problems over and over again. Know enough about the plumbing to be able to make informed decisions (how is this Web framework storing the session state? What is a cookie actually).

　　4. Don’t be afraid of buying tools that save you time.  Ben says: “I bought a bitmap font tool yesterday for $50. It easily saved me more than $200 of my time.”

　　5. Find focus. Don’t keep your email open all day. Same for Twitter, Facebook, HackerNews, and Techememe.  Minimize interruptions during productive moments.  Close email, turn off chat, put headphones on… whatever it takes to not be interrupted. Tiny hack:  I wear headphones at work even though I don’t listen to music because people don’t interrupt me.

　　6. Refactor early and often. Kill your darlings.  Sometimes you have to throw out clever code to do what’s right by the project, but that’s OK. If you have to touch code on an existing project, always leave it better than you found it.

　　7. Just do it. Think small. Do your weekend project, participate in Startup Weekend. I bought a Mac and worked in a Windows Virtual Machine on .NET projects for a year before I was able to fully leap to Unix and Ruby on Rails.

　　8. Pick an editor and PWN it. Some 10x devs prefer text editors to IDE’s because they find they learn more without the crutches. In any case, learn your keyboard shortcuts. There’s no faster way to look something up than to know it.

　　When picking an editor — seriously consider one of the greats (emacs or vim)， they’re universal. After that, pick the best/most supported editor on your preferred platform. Use macros. Write code that writes code. Use TextExpander on the Mac to create shortcuts for entire paragraphs. Use auto-completion in Visual Studio or SublimeText.

　　Use an editor that supports splitting your window into columns or rows. This way you can see your both a unit test and the code it is testing (or a model and view) at the same time.

　　But think before you type. A friend in a large group said that the most productive coder in their group was a paraplegic who used a mouth stick to type. He had to really think things out before he started typing, he only rarely made mistakes.

　　9. Clearness beats Cleverness. Write your code so that the next person can read it, not so it uses the fewest characters possible. Strive to adhere to the DRY (Don’t repeat your self) principle. Re-use clearly defined objects and libraries. Break work into clean interfaces between components and developers. Break the problem into small simple tasks.

　　10. Your sub-conscience is a powerful tool. Stepping away for 10 minutes is often all that is required to solve a problem. Treat your self to a diverse life and limit your coding time. You will be able to work more effectively during your coding time because it will be more enjoyable. Of course, us older developers also know that a minimum effective dose of physical fitness is also a prerequisite to being a 10x developer.

　　Human networking is more important than computer networking. Practice your pong. I often feel the best thing I ever did for my career as a programmer was to step away from the computer and go meet some movers and shakers.

　　11. Refine your process as a team. One of the biggest things is to really pay attention and to be wide open to criticism and changing and refining your process. You can’t become a 10x anything without that foundation because it will take you too long to get better at it. A wise man once said “A smart man learns from his mistakes, but the truly clever man learns from the mistakes of others.”