handthrow

I loved this article about writing and communicating your ideas - it is The Next Programming Skill You Should Learn. Despite not being much of a writer myself, it is pretty important to be able to communicate with the outside world in something other than code (IRC doesn’t count). Writing skills can also help you contribute to your community by writing articles for journals, or blogging etc — I guess it is an essential skill for any profession, but I’d never really seen the connection with programming.

It got me thinking about other skills that you wouldn’t necessarily associate with being a good programmer.

Listening

If theres one thing I’ve learned in the past few months on placement, it is that being a good listener is essential. As I work in a solution development role (although these days less and less), I’m usually working on something very specific to a customer’s needs, and it is important to make sure you take on board what they want so you can actually get it right first time (2nd thing I’ve learned: you don’t).

Speaking

Suprise suprise, I think it helps to be a good speaker too. I don’t mean just for presentations, but for day to day meetings, telephone conversations, chatting with collegues, etc. One of my biggest problems is that a lot of the time I have an idea, I can’t get it out coherently/quickly enough/using the right vocabulary — more down to nerves than anything else — I find that getting it out on paper, then talking about it is easier. However a little confidence goes a long way, and provided you do some preparation (memorizing your points, making some notes etc) and keep a clear head (not letting nerves get the better of you), it gets a lot easier to cope with. I know, I know, easier said than done!

Can anyone think of some other non-technical skills that could make you a better programmer/developer?