Become a better developer
Tags: books, motivation, codequality
Published: 2020-02-11 13:21:01

---
title: Become a better developer
published: true
description: The life of a basic developer, and how I try to become better.
tags: #books #motivation  #codequality
cover_image : https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/wvyur18frrw3dnpjlrys.jpg
---

Actually, I have been developing since five years, always at school. But since one year and a half I work for a company, three days per week. I don't think that I'm the best developer but not the worst. And for this year I has deciding to be a better developer. But why ?

__My definition of good developer__

I read many post on DEV or other forum, and frequently I saw this :
"A good developer is fast, writes few lines, very specialized."
"Companies search a developer very qualified in one domain."

I'm not ok. It's not be a good developer to write three lines instead of ten, if no one can take the code after it. It's not be a good developer to code quickly, if the code is ugly. I prefer take my time, but my code is good for me, for the company and for the person who takes my code afterwards.

__How can I become a better developer ?__

To become a better developer I separate my year with three objectives :

1) Refactoring
2) Testing
3) Performances

I chose these objectives because, for me, it's the definition of good developer. 

1) A code clean, whoever takes my code, it will be easy to take back.
2) A constant code, the company is based on a tested and clean code.
3) Code that doesn't use more resources than necessary.

__Refactoring__

I searched many books on refactoring, mainly for JS. And I found this :

Refactoring : Improving the Design of Existing Code / Martin Fowler

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/3puvv4eqvfq7psgywth1.png)

I think this book should be read by all developers. I have learned so much ! Analyze and understand how it is possible to refactor your code, this is what is explained in this book, with very clear examples. 
I highly recommend it.

And last week at my job, I finish a PHP code and I decide to refactoring my code by applying what I learned. And it's the better satisfaction. My book is the second edition with examples on JS, but the first edition is on Java.

__My list of books__

The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers / Robert C. Martin

Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship / Robert C. Martin

Clean Architecture: A Craftsman's Guide to Software Structure and Design / Robert C. Martin 

Clean Agile: Back to Basics / Robert C. Martin 

Test Driven Development: By Example / Kent Beck

Implementation Patterns / Kent Beck

Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation / Jez Humble

High Performance JavaScript / Nicholas C Zakas


These are mainly books on refactoring, because I haven't researched other objectives yet. I don't have an exceptional level of English, I would even say that it is poor, but if we go to great lengths we are always rewarded. Sorry for my English, if you read until the end. I will do other articles on my readings. Feel free to give me references, or anything else in comments. Thanks for reading.