huhnmonster

This might be a controversial topic with very different opinions, but what are some tips and trick for people who write code in a work setting, but are not trained software professionals?

To give an example: I wrote a lot of automation for a bunch of analysis that run on a daily/weekly basis. I always try to do as much as possible in our data warehouse, but some things just cannot be done there, so I had to resort to excel until now. This requirement has changed now. I do not have deep domain knowledge, but I have a pretty good idea what the things I implemented are doing, so that is not a problem.

My goal over the next couple of weeks is to rewrite most of my automation without excel. I have access to a C# compiler (Shipped with windows - up to C# 5.0 ), PowerShell, can probably get some form of local version control from IT and have access to VS Code. I was trying to plan out how to best do it.

What are some things you guys have learned over the years? What are the gotchas?

Edit: I do program a lot in my spare time, so I am not starting from scratch, but I do not come from a CS background.

During quarantine I have made an important discovery about myself: Everything I do is somehow related to begin 'productive' or with the goal of me receiving praise for it in whatever way. Espeically now with more free time at hand (which I was initially planning to use for something 'productive or useful'), I just ended up wasting about half of it since I deemed the things I was doing 'unimportant' or 'of no greater use to humanity' and so on.

For example: Everyday I try to come back to a project I have started and my initial motivation to continue is there, but it quickly fades away because my mind is like 'It already exists, why do you try to reinvent the wheel'..

By now it is really getting at me since I cannot even convince myself to do anything anymore except stuff for university and exercise. Have any of you ever felt that way or maybe even managed to change the way you look at things?