The Hardest Lessons I Learned as a Junior .NET Engineer

When I began my quest as a.NET programmer, I was a bundle of energy, with the theoretical skills that I gained from college and believed that I could create anything.

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I used to think that programming was purely based on logic and syntax, and if I had the textbook as my guide, I would do just fine. I was wrong.

Real-world development was not like the well-written assignments I had completed. The standards were higher, the issues were more complicated, and the lessons were much more challenging. These are some of the most difficult lessons I learned as a junior .NET developer, lessons that influenced my development and outlook on software development.

1. Your Code is Not as Good as You Think

One of the first projects I worked on was a simple CRUD application. I spent days perfecting my methods, optimizing my loops, and ensuring every class followed the single responsibility principle. Proudly, I submitted my code for review.

Then came the review comments.

• “This method is doing too much. Break it down.”
• “Why are you handling exceptions this way? Try using a global…