All I Need To Know To Be A Better Programmer I Learned In Kindergarten
The Codist has a cool post listing 15 rules for being a better programmer that was inspired by an essay from Robert Fulghum entitled "All I Need To Know To Be A Better Programmer I Learned In Kindergarten." You can
check out the list for yourself if you'd like but here are the first few:
1. Share everything.
Use open source where possible, and contribute to it when you are able. The collective wisdom of the entire community is better than the limited vision of a few large companies.
2. Play fair.
Give other technologies, frameworks, methodologies and opinions a chance. Don't think your choices are the only ones that work. The other choices may very well be better than yours; it doesn't hurt to check them out with an open mind.
3. Don't hit people.
Like #2, don't attack people just because they happen to use .Net or Java or PHP (I learned my lesson there!). Sometimes they might be more usable and useful than you think. You can learn a lot more from someone when you are not pounding them to a pulp.
4. Clean up your own mess.
Strive to deliver code that works. Never expect QA to find all of your bugs for you. Test your code often, both narrowly and broadly.
5. Don't take things that aren't yours.
Follow the licenses for stuff you use, don't just steal it and claim innocence later.
6. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Code reviews are a good but rarely used idea. Mentoring programmers with less experience than you helps the entire team. Just don't criticize people openly. Learning is not belittling people. Sometimes people will listen and sometimes they won't. Sometimes you might learn a lot from people you think are inferior to you.
Check out the full list of 15 here...Source: The Codist