O’Reilly’s Open Source Conference, or OSCON, does a great job showcasing open source technologies and the directions in which they are going.

My main goal in attending was to discover new technologies that I could potentially use in my personal coding time. However, after each presentation at OSCON I found myself asking, “How can I become a great programmer from this talk?”

Mike Amundsen gave a presentation on transitioning to the cloud and how we must remember the lessons stated in The Cathedral and the Bazaar to become a great programmer and create great software. He shared a few of those lessons:

1. Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite and reuse.

Every programmer has seen some code straight out of a horror movie. If you haven’t, check this page out Reddit – BadCode. Good programmers know how to get the job done. Great programmers know how to refactor and make their code reusable.

2. Your last duty as a programmer is to hand off your work to a successor.

Inevitably, every programmer will pass on his/her work onto someone else. You probably have been able to live with your code, but can someone else live with it? Good programmers maintain their code for themselves. Great programmers maintain their code for others.

3. Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around.

Using data structures and design patterns is a great way to remove unnecessarily ugly code! Here is a quote from Linus Torvalds, “Bad programmers worry about code. Great Programmers worry about the data structures and their relationships.” I suggest this book to help with creating smarter code, Design Patterns.

Linus Torvald’s quote stuck with me throughout the whole conference. As I’ve returned to work I find myself asking, “How can I transition myself and my code from good to great?”

I challenge you to do the same…

Photo courtesy of joshfults.com