Become a Professional Programmer

Radomir Dopieralski

PyCon.PL 2014

Professional?

• For every case
• together with the team
• quickly
• finds a solution
• to the root problem
• that is easy to maintain by others
• without adding to technical debt.

Disclaimer

• Ideal.
• Not me.
• Not always appropriate.
• WWPPD?
• Tools.

Version Control

• Work on a single change at a time.
• Use clones/branches (or shelve) if you need to work on several things.
• Don't be afraid to remove code.
• Find which change broke something.
• Commit often, push when you finish.

Unit Tests

• Create testable code.
• Divide your program into independent units.
• Refactor mercilessly.
• Debug with tests.
• Regression tests.

Bug Tracker

• Plan your work.
• Don't leave TODOs in the comments.
• Cooperate with others.
• Link to the commit when closing a bug.
• Explain what was wrong.

Linter

• Catch simple errors easily.
• Make your code beautiful.
• Enforce style.

Style

• Avoid error-prone constructs.
• Prefer readability over typing speed.
• Common style of your language.
• Broken windows.
• Gut feelings.

Documentation

• Use Sphinx.
• Learn English.
• Write whole sentences.
• Check spelling.
• Testable examples.

Code Review

• Learn from each other.
• No more "I will fix it later".
• Keep track of what is happening in the project.
• Meaningful, technical discussions.

External Libraries

• Don't reinvent the wheel.
• Separate units of functionality.
• Contribute upstream.

Packaging

• Add setup.py.
• Provide a sane version number.
• Provide a license.
• Provide a contact.
• Fill any other package metadata.

Thank You

Questions? Comments?