10 regrets of experienced programmers

recently I volunteered my time at a

hospice center for dying programmers

also known as X and I asked the question

you're on your deathbed a kid comes to

your side and says grandpa I want to

learn how to code what do you regret

most about programming my immediate

answer would be something like leave me

alone kid and let me die in peace but

it's actually an interesting question

because programming is not like most

careers it has billions of possible

paths with many conflicting opinions and

no single right way to do things despite

its unpredictable nature I found that

there are some Universal traps that

nearly every developer regrets falling

into and in today's video we're going to

look at 10 of them regret number one I

wish I would have written less code it's

extremely important to understand that

code is not an asset it's a liability

every block of code is something that

you'll have to maintain in the future

and something that could break your

application entirely beginners don't

write a lot of code because they don't

know how but as they gain more

experience they start writing more code

eventually everybody realizes that less

is more and the total lines of code

decrease while productivity increases

however someday you may trans send to

the genius level 10x engineer at which

point the lines of code you produce will

go negative I for one am not afraid to

admit that I regret 99% of the code I've

written I distinctly remember feeling

like a genius when I implemented my

first abstraction Factory Singleton

proxy decorator in JavaScript however a

few years later an angel came to me in a

dream and said bro you could have just

made that a regular function an idiot

admires complexity a genius admires

Simplicity and at that point I realized

my entire life was a lie Simplicity is

always a good thing to strive for but

there's a lot of other trade-offs to

consider like readability performance

maintainability testability reusability

and so on in addition what's the

definition of Simplicity is it about

brevity or readability or something else

entirely in my opinion it all comes down

to time the goal is to minimize the

amount of time anyone has to spend

messing around with your garbage code

regret number two I wish I would have

learned to code earlier when you're

young your brain is highly optimized for

learning but as you get old and crusty

and your pineal gland is calcified by

the fluoride in the water your ability

to learn becomes diminished that's why

most worldclass musicians start at a

very young age now you can learn to play

the piano or learn to code at any age

hell I learned how to play the Triangle

Well into my 30s but if you start

learning how to code when you're 2 or 3

years old you should easily be able to

land a six-figure job by the time you're

13 now most people won't admit it but

there's definitely agism in Tech

employers will often prefer a younger

programmer with a more malleable brain

and that's why the median age of

programmers around the world is around

30 obviously starting young is great for

a lot of things I wish I would have

bought Microsoft stock back in the'80s

the only problem is that I wasn't born

yet so if you want to learn how to code

the best time to start is in the womb

but the second best time is right now

because we're not getting any younger

before we move on to the next one one

thing I don't regret is installing the

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that brings us to regret number three I

wish I would have finished more projects

this is what my side projects directory

looks like and of all these projects I

finished maybe two or three of them

finishing a software project almost

always takes way longer than you'll

estimate there's something called the

9090 rule where when you feel like

you're 90% done with a project you still

have 90% to go it's not like building a

bridge where everything is laid out in a

blueprint with software you'll almost

always have all kinds of unexpected

things come up and if you're a solo

developer you might get distracted and

just quit the project and start

something entirely new from scratch I've

done that more times than I can count in

fact I'm even considering not finishing

this video in retrospect though I really

regret not finishing those projects I

don't even want to think about all the

hours flushed down the toilet with

nothing to show for it however it's also

important to be honest with yourself and

recognize when your app sucks that some

projects just aren't worth finishing and

sometimes knowing when to cut your

losses is even more important than

finishing a project regret number four I

wish I would have gotten a computer

science degree going to college is not

the most efficient way to learn how to

code you learn far more in a real world

job or by building things on your own

and you don't need a degree to get a job

even at Big tech companies but going to

college and networking and doing

internships is the most Surefire way to

get a high-paying job in Tech at a young

age and there are many jobs out there

that do require a degree even even

though it's arguably pointless what you

don't want to do is get scammed like all

these Millennials who went to college

for a useless degree like Egyptian

studies only to find out that there's no

jobs in that field so they go back to

school to get a PhD in Egyptian studies

to teach other kids Egyptian studies

creating a literal pyramid scheme

speaking of pyramid schemes regret

number five I wish I would have bought

Bitcoin in 2010 had you invested $100 in

Bitcoin when it was at 25 you'd be worth

about 25 million today that makes me sad

but it does bring me some joy to realize

that there are people out there that

bought Bitcoin at that price point only

to throw away their hard drive and are

now out there searching through

landfills to try to find them but

watching their suffering makes me feel a

little bit better about myself regret

number six I wish I would have learned

lower level languages like C most

programmers today start by learning

highlevel languages like Python and

JavaScript and you can build an entire

career without ever learning anything

lower than that but that begs the

question are you a real programmer and

the answer is no no you are not luckily

though all you have to do is learn the

basics of C which is a lot easier than

you I think you can learn it in 100

seconds or watch Channels like low-level

learning either way once you write your

first Segal you officially become a real

programmer but seriously even if you

don't need a low-level language learning

the basics of C will just make you a

better programmer I started with highle

languages like Java and PHP however if I

could go back I would have learned C

first because it gives you such a great

foundation for everything else regret

number seven JavaScript on the server

personally I don't regret JavaScript on

the server at all I use the JavaScript

in the browser I use it to build mobile

apps desktop top apps it's smart fridge

apps I use it for machine learning and

for VR and everything in between

including on the server and I have no

regrets JavaScript may not be the most

CPU and memory efficient language on the

server it may not have true type safety

and some of its npm packages may try to

mine crypto on your server but for me

being able to write JavaScript on the

server results in much faster

development and iteration because you've

got a single language across the entire

text stack regret number eight grinding

leak code many developers dream of

getting into a big Tech corporation like

Google Microsoft or Pi Piper but to do

that you'll need to get past a technical

interview or multiple technical

interviews but the only way to get good

at algorithms is to practice like many

programmers I've spent countless hours

practicing on Le code but every single

time my solution is to brute force it

with a hash table in retrospect though I

regret wasting all this time here

because the Pinnacle of my career has

been teaching people how to center divs

on YouTube regret number nine I wish I

would have prioritized my health earlier

sitting on your ass in front of a

computer all day is one of the least

healthy activities you can do according

to science it's right up there with

obesity and smoking if you combine this

activity with high amounts of stress and

a bad diet chances are your heart's

going to explode by the time you're 30 I

think a lot of people underestimate the

dangers of this career there's no way to

avoid being in front of a computer but

there's a lot of things you can do to

reduce the risk like get a standing desk

take regular breaks and don't consume

products like Prime which is currently

being sued for having a massive amount

of cancer-causing pfas inside every

bottle in addition when you take care of

your physical health your mental health

and sharpness will also improve as a

result thus making you a a better

programmer and finally that brings us to

regret number 10 I wish I never would

have learned a code in the first place

I've always found writing code very

satisfying but sometimes it feels like

we're not doing anything real like we're

just creating fake vaporware for a boss

with a fake job title who needs to hit

kpis for some fake performance metrics

to make some fake money for investors I

envy the scuba instructor who gets to

swim with turtles all day or the

paramedic who saves lives every day

these jobs might not pay as well but at

least they feel real I fear in my final

moments my grandchild will inquire about

my life's eon lishments and the most

impressive feed I can muster is

something

like the Wilson back in 24 I once

managed to fix a production bug while

only creating three more bugs in the

process thanks for watching and I will

see you in the next one