Thought I did so well on my phone. It kept auto correcting code to coffee. Maybe it was telling me something.

Yes, plan for it!

All the other comments are great advice. As an ex chemist who does quite a bit of code I’ll add:

Do you want code that works, or code that works?! It’s reasonably easy to knock out ugly code that only works once, and that can be just what you need. It takes a little more effort however to make it robust. Think about how it can fail and trap the failures. If you’re sharing code with others, this is even more important a people do ‘interesting’ things.

There’s a lot of temporary code that’s had a very long life in production, this has technical debt… Is it documented? Is it stable? Is it secure? Ideally it should be

Code examples on the first page of Google tend to work ok, but are not generally secure, e.g doing SQL queries instead of using prepared statements. Doesn’t take much extra effort to do it properly and gives you peace of mind. We create sboms for our code now so we can easily check if a component has gained a vulnerability. Doesn’t mean our code is good, but it helps. You don’t really want to be the person who’s code helped let an attacker in.

Any code you write, especially stuff you share will give you a support and maintenance task long term. Pirate for it!

Code sometimes just stops working. - at least I’m my experience. Sacrifice something to the gods and all will be fine.

Finally, you probably know more than you think. You’ve plenty of experience. Most of the time I can do what I need without e.g. classes, but sometimes I’ll intentionally use a technique in a project just to learn it. I can’t learn stuff if I don’t have a use for it.

I’m still learning, so if I’ve got any part of the above wrong, please help me out.

Yes prime minister is the most accurate documentary about British politics of all time.

Why wasn’t there security on the device? My works devices are password protected and it’s a disciplinary offence if I share passwords or give unauthorized access.

If he gave them the login creds, then he should be penalised .

If he logged in and gave the device to non parliamentary staff, he should also be penalised.

He got caught because it cost money, which is the lesser offence. Cyber security should be more robust for ministers than it is for most companies, but seemingly not.

The PI is always a good place to start, but they’re not cheap anymore. You can still do some useful things at the command line (not sure how fun, but a great education), python is there and very accessible. - get a camera and you could do some great things with open CV. Not sure what packages are out there though. Think you’d just have to follow some web tutorials.

As an alternative, have you considered an Arduino kit? Lots of great projects, all very well documented. Playing with LEDs, sensors, motors etc may keep their attention longer than a bash prompt.

many technical jobs are vocational in nature as it’s impossible to turn it off after work. As long as it’s not affecting your personal life & work life balance (and not affecting your friends and relations) then you are very lucky. Most people don’t enjoy their work so you’re in a good place. Importantly though, don’t feel obligated to do work problems on your own time and don’t let management expect it. Only do it if you want to.

I like the saying “give a man a job he loves and he’ll never work again”. it’s been true for much of my working life.

As a reddit refugee, this is my first post and it’s taken a few hours to get to this point. My work involves getting non technical users to use high end tech and agree that language and terminology can make or break a deployment. Reddit is easy, sign in here and away you go, not quite so with Lemmy. I have learned that if a system isn’t explained as simply as possible, in terms that your grandmother (or boss) can understand, adoption will be harder.

I’m not saying dumb it down entirely, but nobody cares about servers. Providers may be too abstract. Maybe go as far as calling them ‘Homes’ - or something else real world tangible. Once a user gets that on board they can then understand that different homes can talk to each other to form a village or community.

I enjoyed the ‘thing explainer’ books… Cut out all the technical jargon, focus on the user experience and save the detail for those who want to know.

As I say, I’m new here so apologise if I have spoken out of turn out caused offence, I’m watching and learning, and thought my fresh first hand experience may be of use.