There are only few habits that differentiate an ineffective programmer from an effective programmer. After observing many developers in the programming industry. I have reached to these five points.

Through these points you can decide if you are an effective programmer or not.

Even if you are missing some of the habits, you could develop all the missing habits. Once you have the habits you lack, you are on the path of the successful programmer.

Here are five shocking habits of most effective programmers.

1. They Understand the Importance of Touch Typing and Remember Shortcut Keys

In touch typing, you don't need to look at the keyboard while typing. As a programmer, you don't need to search for the right key while writing code.

The most effective programmer understands the importance of touch typing. You might think what the problem is if we look at the keyboard when we type.

Consider this, you are working as a freelancer where you have to create a mobile app. Your client asked you to create this mobile application that they are going to launch.

To build this mobile application you have to write thousands of lines of code. Your client asked you to complete the project in 15 days. They will pay you for every hour.

Your client assumed that this entire project will take around 90 hours to complete.

You started working on the project for hours.

Suppose you don't know the art of touch typing. Due to this, you were unable to complete the project on time.

This will make the client unhappy. Due to your inefficiency, they will cancel the project that was assigned to you.

They will also make sure that you don't receive any projects from them in the future. Also, they will never recommend you to anyone.

The effective programmer understands these facts very well. Thus, they will make sure that they don't waste more time searching for keys and correcting the typos.

If they spend more time finding the right keys, they will spend less time coding.

Finding typos in their code will interrupt their flow.

Knowing how to touch type allows them to be more productive. It allows them to finish their daily work quickly and free up time for other activities.

"If you type adeptly with 10 fingers, you're typing faster than your mind is working." — James A. Michener.

2. They Never Say No to Learn New Things

Effective programmers know that programming is about solving real-world problems through your code.

To solve real-world problems, you need to create products. To build a new product you have to learn new things.

As a programmer, you may think that you just need to learn a new language or a new framework. But it is not always true.

Let's consider that you are creating software for a bank. To create banking software, you must first have knowledge of the financial industry.

To create any software, you will need a basic knowledge of the industry. This industry can be anything from finance to the aviation sector.

So, you should always keep learning as a programmer.

As an effective programmer, you always need to keep your knowledge updated. Whether it is related to a new language or a new framework that hit the market.

The most effective programmers spend 1 to 2 hours a day acquiring new knowledge.

If they can't do it 1 to 2 hours a day, then they spend 4 to 5 hours on their weekend to update their knowledge.

They invest some money in buying a good online course. Otherwise, they invest in some good programming book.

With the help of these resources, they keep learning new things.

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keep learning stays young." — Henry Ford

3. They Write Code That Can Be Easily Read and Documented

Effective programmers write code that is friendly to people and can be easy to read.

The major tech companies have hundreds of developers working for them. These companies build different types of software products.

Suppose you are a developer working to create a feature in one of the software. Even if you write the code to create that feature without errors.

There is a high probability that you will revert to the code written today. Suppose that after a few days you are asked to add another feature.

To create this feature, you need to access the code written earlier.

If you come back and find that you cannot understand the code written earlier. You discovered that the code that is written will take several days to understand. The previous version of the code was not written properly.

Because of this, you will waste your precious time reading and understanding the code you wrote.

This is the reason that effective programmers write code that has a proper naming convention.

They write code that is properly indented. Also, they choose the names of the functions that are self-explanatory.

Effective programmers always keep their code properly commented. Adding comments at the appropriate places within the code gives a brief idea of what the code does.

Also, adding comments to your code allows you to debug your code faster.

Comments can also help to properly document your code. This documentation can help other developers who will work on the project later.

Effective programmers believe that the code they write must be self-explanatory. They try to write code that future engineers will not have a hard time reading.

4. They Provide Guidance to Other Developers and Never Hesitate to Ask for Help

The most effective programmers know that developing software can sometimes be difficult. They understand the pain other developers go through when starting their journey.

So they always try to help other developers. For example, suppose you are an iOS developer. You have recently learned how to develop an application for iOS devices.

You are creating your first application in a company. With this app, you get stuck at one point due to error. You cannot resolve the error even after many attempts to fix it.

You start looking for that error on the internet. You googled that error and checked the stack overflow, but found none related to your error.

So, you decided to post the error that is creating problems on the stack overflow website. You added specific tags for the post.

Now an experienced developer working with the same tech stack looks at the website. Initially, he doesn't know how to fix that error.

He asks you more questions related to an error. You provide all the information related to that error.

He asks you to make certain changes and suggest some good ways to correct the mistake. You try that method and your error has been fixed.

In this way, they are not only helping other developers. But they are strengthening the entire programming community.

Also, they never hesitate to ask for help. They understand the fact that even if they are working with a tech stack for a long time. They can get stuck at some point while developing software.

They are comfortable asking for help. This behavior makes programmers more efficient.

5. They Can Read and Understand Other People's Code

Most inefficient programmers hate reading other people's code. These types of developers just want to write code. They think that programming is about writing code.

You will often see developers complain about code they didn't write.

Efficient programmers also understand that reading other people's code is boring. But they also know that reading other people's code can make things easier for them.

Consider this, if you wanted to become YouTuber, would you only focus on creating videos?

If you follow this approach, you will create some good videos for a few days. If you want to create great videos continuously, you must keep watching good videos.

You have to watch other great YouTuber and get inspired by them. Once you find what kinds of videos work and what is not necessary, then create more videos.

Let's understand this with one more example. Suppose you are a developer in a company. You have been assigned a project to create functions in software that is being developed by a team.

The whole team has already created some of the functions of a particular software. Now you are going to work with that software.

You are going to expand the code and create more functions in that software.

At this point, it is very important that you understand the code that is already written. Then only you can change and extend the code.

The effective programmer knows that if they are working with a new code base for the first time. It will take weeks to understand that, so they maintain peace as they read the code.

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free" — Frederick Douglas

Conclusion

Programming is not just about writing code. If you want to become a successful programmer, you must try to become an effective programmer.

You can become an effective programmer by developing the habits mentioned above.

"The only difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra." — Jimmy Johnson