10 things that will make you a better developer

1. Experiment

Well the only thing I can think of is experimenting. Whenever I'm intrigued by a new technology I start reading about it and fiddling with it over at Codepen. Experimenting, sharing experiments, learning from others and asking questions take you a long way. (by Sara Soueidan)

2. Appreciate the "good" in all areas of art

Appreciate the “good" in all areas of art including music, architecture, literature, etc. All of these things can be very inspirational to your coding. (by Taylor Otwell)

3. Passion

My best advice would be to enjoy what you do. This is the best way to learn, the best way to move forward. You don't get good by waiting for things to come to you, you get good by practicing, searching, trying, testing, experimenting... By trying to learn "why?" as well as "how?". And all of this is driven by nothing but passion. :) (by Hugo Giraudel)

4. Read code of other developers

Read a lot of other people's code. Even if you think they're less experienced than you. You will learn different ways of thinking and find solutions you wouldn't have done that way. For better or for worse. Also try to do support on a co-workers legacy code, just to see how they did things some months or even years ago. Best practices are constantly evolving, so it's never to look at the reasons why they changed, or to check if they should've changed in the first place. (by Stefan Baumgartner)

5. Just build websites

This is a short, easy but effective advice from Chris Coyer. Just go out and build something. Theory is important and good but nothing will help you to grow as a developer as getting stuff done. (by Chris Coyer)

6. Exchange knowledge

Stop only consuming knowledge and start actively exchanging knowledge with others. How? By registering on Twitter an getting into direct contact with all those other great developers out there. (by Christian Schaefer)

7. Contribute to projects

Start contributing to open source projects. Of course this means to register for Github, where you can start small by helping out on someone else's project. After a while you will be able to begin creating your own projects. (by Christian Schaefer)

8. Don't just implement something from your own mind

I see a lot of people making packages or implementing solutions based on their own experiences. Rather than doing that, whenever you need to implement a solution actually go and research what other people have done in this space. A neat example of this is the concept of 'voters' for ACL. How many of us have implemented ACL without having heard of voters? They're not the right solution for everything, but how can we pretend that we're trying to find the right solution if we don't do research. Don't just implement something from your own mind, learn what else is out there and then choose what's right for you. (by Shawn McCool)

9. Watch out for the Hypetrain

The Webtechnology scene flourishes and new great projects, languages and frameworks come out every day.  Some projects are able to generate more buzz than others and many people will tell you this is the one solution to rule them all.

My tip, don't jump blindly on those Hypetrains and throw everything overboard. Try to evaluate new things first. Going into a project blindly with something you don't know very good can be very challenging and may force you into directions you primarily wanted to avoid.  Try to find challenging Scenarios for a new technology and check how easy the solution is, or how close it comes to what you want to reach. Sometimes the more unpopular solution can fit your project much better or alignes  perfectly with your personal coding style.

This said, still keep an eye on popular projects as they can turn out to be very valuable at a later point or they  really turn out to be the next big thing straight from the start. (by Roman Kuba)

10. Never give up

The tenth tip is one from me: Never give up!

I admit it is sometimes hard out there to be a developer these days. It's not like we just have to learn one language. We have to know about several ones as well as about dozens of tools like preprocessors, versioning, deployment, architectures, frameworks, pattern and and and. Don't get me wrong. These stuff is great but you often get overwhelmed by all of this. Especially because the tools are changing every day.

So please don't give up. Reaching for the stars is good, but help yourself and make this journey a comfortable one. Go step by step and appreciate the small things you can learn with every project.