Presented byPakorn Weecharungsan

10 Skills Developers Should Invest In for 2014

•Every minute of the work day is an opportunity for investment for us as developers. During this time, we can make a conscious decision to grow in our craft or instead chose to stagnate. Sadly many developers make the decision to get comfortable with a set of skills and not push forward. Many organizations are filled with these developers.

•The ten key skills that innovative software developer should invest in.

Introduction

• 1. Know a native mobile platform.• 2. Know a basic agile development process and toolset.• 3. Know how to do effective estimations.• 4. Know JavaScript.• 5. Know a server side language.• 6. Know basic HTML and CSS.• 7. Know how to quickly find information.• 8. Know how to maintain a project over time.• 9. Know Git well.• 10. Know a good tool for tracking tasks and issues.

Key Skill Outline

•There are many ways to create mobile applications. From an HTML hybrid approach to an approach which renders native controls from another language.

•However, all of these have one thing in common: when running on the device, these applications are running on native code.

• if an organization is going to create and deploy a mobile application, they will need to utilize someone who understands the native layer, even if the application is built using another technique.

•There are obviously a few good choices here. iOS, Android, and Windows Phone

1. Know a native mobile platform.

• Selected mobile platforms used by app developers worldwide

1. Know a native mobile platform.

• Every developer needs to understand the process. They need to understand how to track progress on tasks and how to work with other developers to get things done.

• Even if you are a developer who usually works solo on projects, understanding agile development and an agile toolset can help you learn how to size your tasks as well as determine if you are on track for finishing your commitments.

• There are many different flavors of agile development including Scrum,Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), and many others. A part of this investment is doing a little bit of research to determine what method fits your current situation.

2. Know a basic agile development process and toolset.

• The available agile toolsets include varying degrees of complexity, and in many cases the choices are tied to the flavor of agile development that you will be adopting.

• It could be using a simple toolset like PivotalTracker orTrello, or it could be leveraging a sophisticated tool like JIRA Agile.

2. Know a basic agile development process and toolset.

•The key is being able to learn from each project.•There are effective team techniques that can be leveraged as well such

as using story point estimation tied to team’s overall velocity. However, each developer still needs to learn how to estimate specific tasks for their own efforts within a larger project.

3. Know how to do effective estimations.

•There is not any tier that JavaScript cannot touch to some extent. Currently you can utilize JavaScript to write mobile applications, server applications, program the data tier, create a blogging engine, develop and execute a custom workflow and pretty much anything else you can think of.

•Read JavaScript: The Good Parts, understand prototypal inheritance, and learn how to think and program like a JavaScript developer

4. Know JavaScript.

•This is a crucial element. If you are mainly a front-end developer, then you still need to have a cursory understanding of how things work on the back-end.

•Being able to create the entire chain from a front-end application through the API layer and to the database is an important skill set.

•There are a lot of choices. Java, .NET, Python, and PHP.

5. Know a server side language.

•Nothing is as ubiquitous in the developer landscape as web technologies.

•Most every platform has the ability to render web content and HTML has become a de facto way of abstracting layout concepts for many technologies.

•Even if you don’t do web development, having an understanding of HTML and CSS will only benefit you.

6. Know basic HTML and CSS.

•Think of the times that you needed to leave your tool of choice for writing code to go look up some information in your browser?

•Knowing how to quickly find the information that you need could greatly reduce the time you have to spend outside of your programming environment.

7. Know how to quickly find information.

• Alfred and Dash (Mac)• Zeal (Windows)

7. Know how to quickly find information.

•This can take many different forms. For example, you could put some of the software you have written out as an open-source project.

•You could release an application in the iOS App Store, Google Play Store, Mac App Store, Windows Phone Marketplace, etc… In short, you need to know what it takes to put some software out there where you are the maintainer of the codebase.

8. Know how to maintain a project over time.

•Git is more prevalent in some development communities over others, but Git is more than just a VCS (version control system).

•Because of its efficiencies in branching, it enables a very effective new flow that can be leveraged by both individuals and teams.

9. Know Git well.

• git-flow• This approach is a fundamental shift that

affects not only source code but process as well.

• This model work extremely well on projects with only a few developers to a few dozen developers.

• If you are new to Git, learn it. If you are a novice, grow your skill set.

9. Know Git well.

•Tracking both tasks and issues for a project is an essential task that developers will encounter on a daily basis.

•While there are some quality tools that are free (such as Github Issues or the issue tracker in Bitbucket), in most cases developers will also leverage more sophisticated systems like JIRA in the development process.

• Learn to use these tools in a way that benefits you and streamlines your workflow.

•earn how to do things which save you time like linking and closing issues with your commit messages.

10. Know a good tool for tracking tasks and issues.

• Use JIRA to capture and organize your team's issues, prioritize and take action on what's important, and stay up to date with what's going on around you.

10. Know a good tool for tracking tasks and issues.

• List important points.▫Mobile▫JavaScript▫Agile▫Git▫Tracking tasks and issue

•More information.▫Agile (http://agilemethodology.org)▫Git-flow (https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/comparing-workflows)

Summary