Filling up the gap on becoming a better developer

Reading the prefer design skills post written by Martin Fowler recently, I begin to look at the post from the perspective of an employee and a developer rather than looking from the perspective of an employer. As a programmer myself and agreeing with most of the reason highlighted as the preference, I believe this post can be used as one of the route to becoming a better programmer or developer.

Has design skill been neglected? With so many posts out there, providing valuable guidance on how to improve oneself to become a better developer, still the design skill is not often mentioned anywhere. So, the prefer design skills post probably helped to fill up one of the gap on becoming a better developer. The following are some excellent view point on becoming a better developer through technical and non-technical ways:

• Becoming a Better Developer by Software by Rob

• 10 Developer For The Price Of One by hacked

Other than looking at the prefer design skill post from a different perspective, I believe this post also open up the perspective of an employer on hiring a developer to anyone. Therefore, this is probably one of the criteria that your new employer will be looking for in you. In my opinion, the development world is so dynamic and fast-paced with new language, platform, hardware, software and etc been introduced now and then. As such, the need to be adaptable to change and keeping oneself updated with all these changes is as important, else a developer can become obsolete with the language and platform he or she is most comfortable with. Having broad skill and knowledge, a developer will be able to look at the different pro and cons of different platform, software and even hardware can provide. With this, a better choice can be made and instead of constraining to the limitation of what a single platform cannot provide.