The Key To Being A Good Developer: Ship Something

Valve founder Gabe Newell took part in a somewhat-delayed Ask Me Anything session on Reddit today. While the discussion stirred up lots of excitement in the gaming community, Newell also offered up an always-timely reminder to developers of all stripes: coding excellence can’t be measured if you never actually finish anything.

During the discussion, this question popped up:

I am planning on majoring in Computer Science, and I want to someday work in game development. What do AAA companies look at, other than a degree?

Newell’s response?

We look for a history of shipping things. There is no substitute for shipping things that make your customers happy.

That’s good advice for aspiring developers. Code needs to work, but it also needs to be used.


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