Letters to a New Developer
letterstoanewdeveloper.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2018
Dan Moore (mooreds) writes a newsletter of career and craft advice for new software developers.
What HN saysCommenters recommend the newsletter highly, and HN links it for posts on understanding people, playing more, and general advice for early-career developers.
28HN people shared it
6linked it in comments
371stories submitted
2.0Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2018people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1"It never gets easier, you just go faster." (2020)6 people · 67 points · first shared 2020 · 10 comments on HN
- 2Letters to a New Developer4 people · 11 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 3There are no adults in the room3 people · 220 points · first shared 2019 · 108 comments on HN
- 4Avoid the Impossible Goal of Being a Know It All3 people · 12 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 5Learn Your Standard Library3 people · 8 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 6Learn a Text Editor (2018)3 people · 6 points · first shared 2020 · 2 comments on HN
- 7Always Be Journaling (2018)2 people · 161 points · first shared 2018 · 74 comments on HN
- 8Always leave the code better than you found it2 people · 56 points · first shared 2020 · 70 comments on HN
- 9The Best Code Is No Code2 people · 29 points · first shared 2019 · 6 comments on HN
- 10Software is about people, not code (2020)2 people · 28 points · first shared 2020 · 18 comments on HN
- 11Learn two (programming) languages (2019)2 people · 10 points · first shared 2019 · 3 comments on HN
- 12Show HN: Letters to a New Developer, the Book2 people · 8 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 13You know more than you think2 people · 8 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 14How to Excel at Your Job as a New Developer (2019)2 people · 8 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 15Understanding People Matters More Than Understanding Tech2 people · 7 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
mooreds · 2025-09-29
Fun article! Lots of good points, each of which could be their own article. I did something similar[0] a few years back.
Author, if you feel inspired, would love to have you expand these and share the results.
For example, what are good ways to maintain relationships? When, if ever, should you let a relationship wither? Another example: what is a good way to get familiar with legacy code? What even is legacy code?
0: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/
kureikain · 2022-12-23
In the list of the top 10 users who got most upvote, one of the user is mooreds who runs an amazing newsletter call "Letter to a new developer"
https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/
Highly recommend to follow mooreds and his newsletter. It's great that he spend his time to tailor and help the new developer.
Not affiliate with mooreds in any mean just a happy audience.
hilbert42 · 2023-03-06
Much later....
This story has subsequently appeared on HN, it seems absolutely apt to include it here as it's directly relevant to the F-Droid UI matter:
https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2023/03/06/understanding-people-mat…
jasode · 2021-11-09
>It was released last year and is indeed available.
It's confusing because the url the HN user submitted was dated "August 2, 2020" and it has a future tense sentence: "The book arrives in August. I hope you’ll check it out.
Since the book was already released, the better link (which lists the TOC) is probably: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/the-book/
msie · 2020-06-20
(Seems like I'm writing this to myself too.)
https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2020/04/20/you-should-play-a-lot-mo…
Off the top of my head:
- play a lot more without any expectation, don't be afraid to leave a trail of mistakes and unfinished projects
- make sure you are healthy, eating and exercise, lots of sleep
- make sure you allocate time to playing and not be distracted by other things
- watch a bunch of youtube videos on computing, programming
- play play play
- don't try to force getting that excitement back, so play a little each day and if bored, do something else
- if you are worried about wasting your time playing, look back and see what you have accomplished over the last week. Know that another week will pass and you can decide to fill that week with tinkering or not.
- be in a relaxed state when you want to learn something
kalonis · 2020-05-07
There are no adults in the room (https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2019/08/12/there-are-no-adults-in-t…
During my career I was always looking for some senior developer to guide me in my work. I was hoping someone has figured everything out and could tell me whether my solutions where good or bad. It frustrated me that most of them did not really have a clue and could not help me. I blamed it to my company which would not invest the money to hire really good senior developers and switched employers. I hoped to find better learning opportunities there (which I thought meant better guiding). But it was the same everywhere: The people who I thought had everything figured out seemed to be just as clueless as me.
It took me some time to realize this is the norm. There is no one who has the perfect understanding of everything. There is a lot of uncertainty to any solution you try out. Accepting the uncertainty and acting accordingly is the true meaning of "seniority".