A little cheat here, and there never hurt anybody and wasn’t only helpful with “The Legend of Zelda” back in the days. Even developers need some assistance from time to time to boost their productivity or to solve particular problems. And that you are reading this article already shows a lot about you as a developer: you take your craft seriously. Sure, especially experience and training make you better, but these tools we want to introduce to you as well. You might not even have heard of them! Every month there are countless new tools on the market, so it’s tough to stay in the loop.

Here are our favorites, to prevent you from drowning in the Tool-Pool:

 

1. Trello

 

Image Credit: Trello.com

 

We wouldn’t be hy if we didn’t introduce you Trello. It’s very likely you’ve already heard a lot about this tool and might already use it on the regular. If not: Where the hell have you been? With the help of Trello, it’s so easy to have an overview of your project, and it’s development. It consists of Lists that can be added and shifted to Boards. Even if your team is using a more heavy duty tool like Jira, Trello can be useful, to keep track of your workload, learning goals or side projects. If it’s still unclear to you, how to use Trello: find some public Boards, here for some inspiration.

 

 

2. Code Wars

 

Image Credit: Codementor.io

 

Challenges are a great way to train yourself and to become a better developer. It’s the same with artists and their quick sketches, juggling for football players and improvising for a pianist - it keeps us “warm” and stipulates your foundational skills. Code Wars offers hundreds of challenges that are classified by complexity factor. The cool thing about Code Wars is, that, after you finished the problem, you can see the solutions of others with the highest rating.

 

 

 

3. Evernote

 

If brains could get bigger with every new information you get, developers would have a severe monster brain. But luckily there’s Evernote to relieve your monster brain. With this tool, you can save articles, shortcuts, ideas and what else comes to your mind in your day to day life, and review it another time. Everything is kept in a cloud, so you have access to your second brain whenever you need it!
 

 

Image Credit: Giphy.com

 

 

 

 

4. CodePen

 

Simply said: CodePen is an excellent platform for frontend developers with an even greater community that allows you to share code, get feedback and inspiration. CodePen also helps with getting work as a freelancer, as your profile can serve as a portfolio.
 

Image Credit: Code Pen

 

 

 

 

5. Sip

 

Super easy, super cool, super fresh - Sip. Sounds like a new lemonade, but it is a tool to “steal” colors from anywhere in formats like hex and RGB.
 

 

Image Credit: Sipapp.io

 

 

 

 

6. WebPageTest

 

An easy and free (yey) tool to test your website for speed and performance. It tells you which aspects need bettering and gives them a rating.

 

 

 

7. Built with

 

“Built with” is a great tool to see which technology is used to build the website you are interested in. Life can be so easy!

 

Image Credit: Giphy.com

 

 

 

 

8. Code Climate

 

Code Climate is an automated tool for GitHub and GitHub Enterprise to analyze your code. As a developer, you can already “smell” a foul code. But Code Climate can tell you exactly where it smells and how you can get rid of the mold. It rates your app after usability, style, security and more. It’s free for the first two weeks after it’s 700€ a month for a team of 25 people.

 

Image Credit: dandemeyere.com
 

 

 

 

9. Raspberry Pi

 

Image Credit: Amazon.de

 

Small but powerful! This single-board computer is the size of a credit card, only costs 40€ and can do so many cool and fun things! It makes you use your developer skills which you have to combine with the electronic components.

These are a few cool things you can do with the Raspberry Pi.

 

 

 

 

10. IFTTT

 

“If this then what” is a service, that allows you to let your apps talk to your devices. If you want to get out of a boring conversation, you can trigger a fake call with a simple SMS. You can automatically light the way for the pizza delivery guy or let Google Home find your phone. There are so many recipes to use IFTTT, so have fun with it and let it make your life a bit easier!

 

 

 

Which tools do you use daily?  

 

Next up: The best communities for developers. Stay tuned!

“Many roads lead to code”, “To miss the forest for the Code” and “To make mountains out of code.” Code, code, code. Everywhere we hear code. We know that your work life centers around these four letters and that’s fair enough as a developer. But what if I’d tell you, that, to see the bigger picture, you need to be further away rather than close? You are on that picture, with a horse, riding towards sunset. The sunset is a metaphor for your professional progression here. And if you still don’t know what we are talking about, because you didn't have creative enlightenment at yoga this morning: To be a better developer, it can be helpful to stop making code the focus from time to time.

 

We collected a few tips for you, on how to be a better developer - code aside! Enjoy!

 

 

 

Look for a mentor

We all have someone we look up to. For me, it’s Russel Brand and his beautiful luscious hair, for you it might be Jim Carrey. But jokes apart. With a mentor on your side the chances for a job promotion quintuplicate. Look for a mentor, whose achievements and work experience you admire and study him in detail. Not in a creepy way, but think about if you could work with that person, if he or she is happy with his/her career, can that person challenge you and what can you offer in return?

Finding the right mentor can be one of the most critical decisions in your career - but no stress ;)

 

 

Image Credit: Giphy.com

 

Be a mentor

A good developer should not only like to learn and learn a lot but should also like to teach others. It is an incredibly fantastic feeling to share passion and knowledge with someone and see them grow. Besides this emotional factor, being a mentor can help to better your leadership ability, allows you to view something from a different angle and helps to increase productivity. So go for it, change lives!

 

 

Get new skills

How silly would it look, if a bodybuilder was only training one muscle of his body? Exactly, very silly. You should challenge yourself too. Till you feel comfortable in your “Discomfort Zone.” A great developer is a Jack of all trades; a know it all. And if you want to be that, you should learn about other areas, like marketing, user experience, business... Ask your colleagues what books, podcasts or blogs they can recommend. To understand all the different aspects of a product, not only the technical ones, can help communicating and collaborating with the team and can ultimately contribute to finding better solutions to current problems.

 

 

Freetime

I’ve got a super important definition for you: Freetime = Time that is spent not working. Crazy but to treat free time as free time is hard for many and can become a physical impossibility. But to distance yourself from work and not to occupy your mind with code, no matter how much fun it is to you, is very important. Otherwise, it’s like trying to get water from a dry lake. Plan your well-deserved breaks, that way you don’t feel bad when you have them.

 

 

Image Credit: ReactionGIF.org

 

 

Mindfulness

Get fresh air, be active, eat healthily and meditate daily. We don’t want to lecture you, but this, too, has an impact on your work results. It will help to reduce stress and will have an overall positive effect on your life.

 

Image Credit: Giphy.com

 

 

To sum up, we can say that, if you really want to be a great developer, you need to broaden your horizon - outside of the technical borders. Maybe you find entirely new interests that you didn’t know you had?

And if you think “there has to be more to a great developer,” follow this series and find out what else you can do to become a great developer.

While you are trying to hold onto your branch of a profession that is afflicted with “Bugs,” it is possible to be so focused on your hard skills, that you lose track of your soft skills. Even if the quality of your code is crazy good and you can fix bugs like the world’s best pest controller, you need to consider so much more, to not only be a good but a fantastic developer.

 

We definitely don’t want to make you feel bad! But sometimes it’s important to reflect.

“Am I like that?”, “Am I doing that?”, “Can I be better?”, “Did the pants always fit this tight?”.

 

This is the first article of a series that will help you become a better developer and maybe even a better person.

If you should think you are already amazing enough and you’d love to marry yourself (Sologamy is a legal thing!) - Congrats!

 

For everyone else: Here are 8 soft skills, for you as a developer, that is super helpful to have.

 

1. Communication

Effective Communication is probably as important in a job as it is in a relationship.

Don’t just hear, listen, give feedback speak clearly and let people finish talking. Good communication also means for a developer to be able to explain highly technical things, so non-technical co-workers and clients understand. To know when to make it short and when to go into detail. Let’s be honest here, we all stop listening to chatterboxes after a while, right?

 

Image Credit: SomeCards.com

 

2. Teamwork

“Teamwork makes the dream work,” you know that! Yes sure, people can be incredibly vigorous, but sometimes, and sometimes happens often, you will need to work in a team. It’s no drama not to have the same opinion on everything, a different point of views can actually be super helpful.

Listen, let them talk (see 1.) and be helpful. Good Teamwork will also create a great atmosphere at work.

 

Image Credit: imgflip

 

3. Patience

You want others to be patient, so you should be patient with them too. Not everyone understands how the code works or how long it takes to write it. If someone asks you to do something and underestimates the scope of that task, yeah you might want to implode. Take a deep breath in and out and use your communication skills - everything will be fine!

 

 

Image Credit: Giphy

 

4. Time management

Important!! And the keyword here is routine. You’ve already achieved much, knowing how long it takes for you to do your daily tasks and to block a certain timeframe for it. We at hy are big fans of the so-called “Pomodoro Method.” Meaning, you work 25 minutes and take a 5-minute break. After 100 minutes of work, you make a break of 15 to 20 minutes (Pomodoro Desktop Timer). There are so many more methods, just try them and find one that suits your workflow best.

 

 

Image Credit: Ignitesocialmedia.com

 

5. Teaching

Even if you’re only at the start of your developer career, you can share more knowledge with people than you might think! Everyone should contribute to the “knowledge pool” in a company. You gather, and you cede, this is how you learn to swim in the working world.

 

Image Credit: Giphy

 

6. Adaption

We know, you’re probably already used to change. Looking at the development of the internet in the past ten years, it is relatively clear, why the ability to adapt is so essential. It is guaranteed, that you constantly have to learn new skills, that a project you’re working on can get canceled and you will work with a different company. Of course, it is hard to ask everyone to be happy about every change made, but no one wants to work with an absolute no-man. Be open and see the possibilities and advantages of change. This way you stay motivated and might motivate your colleagues too.

 

 

7. Focus

To be honest, in the world of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other technical distractions, it is really not easy to focus. And that’s exactly why being able to focus is a trait that a lot of employers are mainly looking for in a candidate. Focus, there or not, influences your ability to address something in depth and primarily as a developer that can’t be underestimated.

 

 

Image Credit: Giphy

 

8. Social Skills

Do you know this colleague, that makes everyone laugh? That never gossips, and that makes you upset if he doesn’t show up for work?
BE THAT PERSON!

 

Then, at the end of the day, if you can’t connect with anyone, how do you want to sell your ideas? That will ultimately come down to obey orders rather than issue them.  

 

 

And? Got Skills?

 

The next article will show you possibilities on how you can challenge yourself to be a better developer. Till then a non-developer related challenge: Don’t complain about anything for a whole month - it’s f* hard, I tell you that!

 

A bouncy castle, taking the rollerblades to your desk, daily delivery of cupcakes at 3 pm, Tim Mälzer as kitchen chef and team meetings in the jacuzzi. Everyone has colorful imaginations of the perfect job. And you definitely can demand if you can perform. Particularly developers have particular demands, that can’t be compared to those of employers working in a different field. 

 

Here are seven insights into the intellectual world of developers when it comes to choosing a job. This post is the cheat sheet to make you a dream-employer. Use it wisely (and don’t let them catch you)!

 

1) Salary

Even though money, contrary to popular beliefs, doesn’t rule the world, it is the first thing that developers will look for, when they search for a new job. The majority of developers, particularly with specializations, feel underpaid. Wherefore a transparent approach to salary can only affect the desirability of the position in a positive way. According to an experiment carried out by StackOverflow, job ads that specify the salary range, get 75% more clicks, compared to the ones without. Is it the nice green numbers, that attract the developers like flies to the light? No, it’s honesty.

 

So, clear the air, be fair! (Oh oh, now they start to rhyme too)

 

 

Image Credit: StackOverflow

 

2) Flexible working hours

In our last blog post we talked about the so-called “flow state.” And man, how important it is to allow the developer to organize their time independently, to let them have this flow state. Not having to do a 9-5 takes away a lot of stress, and where stress levels decrease, motivation increases. Moreover, this is an essential factor for developers with family. Same counts for the possibility to work remotely. If you’re not forced to squeeze into a packed, smelly train at peak hour, you have more time and energy to work and maybe even squeeze in a relaxed breakfast.

Click here to read about the benefits of remote work.

 

3) Attractive product

Of course, you think your product is the coolest. As well as your mom thinks her daughter/son is the most beautiful of them all. You should also make it evident for your new potential developer and show him how he contributes to the success of the product. Everyone wants to know what they work for and that their blood and sweat is shed for something meaningful.

 

Image Credit: Quote Fancy

4) Modern technologies

According to a survey, the Tech Stack, so the languages, frameworks and other technologies that are worked with on the job has the highest priority for developers when it comes to job search. The top 3 of the most popular coding languages are Rust (82,3%), Kotlin and Swift, whereas the most sought-after languages are Python, Go and JavaScript. Of course, it doesn’t make sense to use a certain Tech Stack only because it’s trendy. Retrospective, the mullet, and Crocs were sh** trends too. But what’s important here is, to talk with the team about their needs and give them the possibility to propose new methods.

 

Image Credit: Reddit

5) Team

If you already have a “boss” team, you can be sure to attract even more “boss” employees. “You attract what you are”- it’s like a formula. Amongst inspiring team members, developers feel comfortable, motivated and simply like coming to work. It’s important for big companies too, to know how your colleagues work and make their work intertwine with yours like the meshes of a pair Patagonia hiking socks - understandable, right?

 

Image credit: TheNetManCorp.

 

6) Further development opportunities

Without opportunities to develop further, we might still be in the 18th century being amazed by the “Spinning Jenny.” We understand that with significant current demands it might seem hard to consider the development of your employees. But with a systematic approach, you can motivate and therefore raise the proficiency and quality level of your company. Win-win!

 

7) Workplace

This may seem to be a rather unessential factor, but a poorly furnished workplace doesn’t only cause cardiac pain for design enthusiasts but also affects the working atmosphere, motivation and therefore productivity. All of us like to surround ourselves with beauty and whoever spends 8 hours and more at work, has the right to be a little superficial and care about exterior appearance.

 

Google Office Tel Aviv

Image Credit: De Zeen

 

It is safe to say, that sometimes you can trump the competition with a higher salary. Is the salary not sufficient, it may not even come to the job interview. But it also is of great importance to understand how developers work, how they think, to make the position as appealing as possible.

 

And, what can you offer your employees?

To be fair, it is not easy to open your heart and wear a hippy flower crown on your head and dance untroubled among the roses in a world of globalization, AI, climate change and Donald Trump. So we deliberately step in dog poop instead and carry it with us the whole day. It can be so easy to lose yourself in negative thoughts, but there are so many things to be grateful for. Even though we encouraged you to bring out the hate in you in the last blog post  - get over it already.

 

 

So here are 10 things you love (should you’ve forgotten about them):

 

1) The community

Communities like Stack Overflow, GitHub and Google Developers, to only name a few, are incredibly valuable. The internet is a wonderful place for developers. You can google answers to “how to dry my Chinchilla,” or you get help on all topics that have to do with developing in forums of the communities mentioned above. Tools, collaborations, the sweets of developer’s Disneyland.

 

2) Jokes that only developers get

Simple as that: Nerd humor is the best humor. How boring would it be if everyone understood the joke? Laughing alone is way more fun anyway.

 

Image Credit: devhumor.com

3) Good Teamwork

Coding is a type of usable art. And to complete this piece of art, you need a team, that runs like an oiled machine. From client to support team to designer, project manager, finance... Good teamwork is to involve everyone. Tools like Slack can help with this. Still, your favorite Co-worker is the one, that doesn’t interfere in your work too much. Coding is for the developers my friends - do you agree?

 

4) Coffee

As soon as you place your coffee on the table, all co-workers know, that your concentration phase has begun. It is some sort of ritual. Besides the unofficial use as “Do not disturb” sign, coffee is known for its abilities to enhance our focus so much, that we feel like we can achieve superhero like goals.

 

Image Credit: pinimg.com

 

5) Python

Python is an allrounder and can be used in nearly every situation. The setup and web programming in Python is easy, the job opportunities numerous and the libraries full. Python might not be the best choice for all tasks, but still is the Go-To tool for most developers and maybe yours too? If so, why do you love Python?  

 

6) Code

“Dear code, to have made you was a lot of pleasure for me and with you, on my side, I never stop learning. Other people value and love you as much I do. Our love was imagination, only air, at the start but now it is written in Java. This could be the beginning of a love letter to code. You love it, and you know why.

 

7) Patient people

Your friends, family and your partner know that a relationship with a developer only works if you have some free time and don’t take “I’m almost done” too serious. If your partner is longing for a lot of attention and doesn’t want to come second, there could be a problem. You’re married to coding, and the code gets jealous easily. Your co-workers should be patient with you too. People that respect your flow-state have a place in your heart.

 

Image Credit: Koding.com

 

8) Technology

Social media, newest gadgets, artificial intelligence, crypto, and and and and. No field is developing faster than tech. It makes your, my, our life easier, is fun and can even save lives (wtf!). A twitter post before an earthquake, GPS-Spotting after an accident or the browser history and social media footprints of a criminal - used at the correct time, technology can work wonders.

 

9) Problems

The love for problem-solving probably is the reason why you became a developer in the first place. There are often problems that pop up, that force you to think creatively - even if you’re working with a debugger. Logical thinking is a tiring act for most, that is tried to be prevented. But as a developer, you love structured work. And man, the feeling when the code works..:

Image Credit: huddle.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com

10) Music

Another tool to keep people away from you, so you can work in peace. Earpods make you forget the external world and allow you to focus. Daft Punk, The Prodigy, video game music, what’s your Go-To for final concentration?

 

 

In case this Article was unsatisfying for you and you forgot why you wanted to be a developer: This is a video that should clear things up for you: