3 things that make me a better programmer (that don’t involve coding)

Beyond code

Danielle H
4 min readSep 27, 2024

We all want to become better at what we do. And obviously, the best way to get better at something is to do it. You want to be a better writer? Write. You want to be a better cook? Cook. You want to be a better programmer? Code.

But sometimes, completely code-less actions can make you a better programmer.

Things like…

Going to Conferences

Image from Pixabay

I went to Google Cloud Summit in my area. I do not, at the moment, do any programming on or with the cloud. While I use ChatGPT extensively to code, I am not creating any AI apps, cloud or otherwise.

I also went to the ISOT conference (I code for neurobiologists 😄). There isn’t a lot of coding there, and I certainly didn’t program when there.

So why did I go?

Open your mind

In addition to networking and meeting people, which is always great, this is an amazing way to hear about new ideas and software. Everyone uses software of some type. What software did they use? Why? Would it help me to use it? In what situation would it be a good fit?

We tend to stick with what we know. What would happen if we didn’t?

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Danielle H
Danielle H

Written by Danielle H

Physicist turned programmer, exploring many languages to build projects from neurobiology tools to abstract videos.