What's a Valuable Skill You Should Have?

Publish Date: Jul 30 '24

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There are certain skills that I always admire in other people. For example, when someone is fluent in using the command line, knows the right commands, and combines them by piping the output from one as input to another.

However, one valuable skill that I think everyone should have - programmer or not - is the ability to read and write Regular Expressions. You don't have to be perfect at it, but you just need to know that they exist, understand their basic structure, and grasp what the different symbols mean.

Regular expressions come in handy in many situations, be it refactoring a codebase with search and replace, searching through log files, or working with spreadsheets.

What do you think is a valuable skill for someone to have?

Comments 5 total

TouchumindJul 30, 2024
Know how to search, questioning
- Chris CookJul 30, 2024
  Yes, a really good point! I often see people struggle to find the right resources (Github issues, Stackoverflow answers, blog posts, etc) because they aren't able to generalize their problem. They search for a very specific problem and don't find an answer, and then think it's a very specific problem. But there are probably many other people who have almost the same problem, just a bit different. If you try to abstract away from lots of specific things, or in other words, if you ask the right question, you suddenly find a lot of help.
ArnavJul 31, 2024
Not really a technical skill, but I believe being able to project your abilities and ideas in a manner that appeals to people is really important.
- Chris CookAug 1, 2024
  Yes, that is certainly a very valuable skill. You have to have a sense of who you're talking to and find the right level or depth. I often tend to get too technical and lose my counterpart in conversations because they can't follow my argument or idea.
  
  But presumably you meant more the ability to present an idea in an interesting or motivating way so that other people buy into it. Is that right?
  - ArnavAug 1, 2024
    
    But presumably you meant more the ability to present an idea in an interesting or motivating way
    
    I was actually referring to the scenario you just described, but this rings true as well.

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Chris Cook @zirkelc

What's a Valuable Skill You Should Have?

Comments 5 total