how do you know the good from the bad? what is the consensus? what is the best book, open source project, mentor, forum, blog, hackathon, tutorial, podcast, me

how do you know the good from the bad? what is the consensus? what is the best book, open source project, mentor, forum, blog, hackathon, tutorial, podcast, meetup or academic course that taught you the best principles that made you a good coder." It's not any one of those things. It's not who tells you how to think, but learning to make the choices yourself based on how things work. Occasionally there are clear choices regarding what is better, but most of the time, there are trade-offs. It sounds like you need to be looking at those trade offs at a higher level. You need to stop caring so much if something is criticized, and instead look at whether those criticisms are valid for your use case. I'd also note that I think a lot of the time, people place certain trades, certain practices, even certain frameworks and languages on a pedestal, when in reality there isn't always a huge difference for the average programming use case. That's not to say that trying to be a better coder is not a worthy goal. But don't think of it as coding right, or good from bad. People too often use value judgment terms (right, wrong, good, bad) when they should be discussing trade offs (better performance, easier to add to, easier to maintain, less memory, faster compile, less time spent writing etc). So, expose yourself to different viewpoints. find Java user group, a Scala meetup, whatever, and meet people. Hell, try tutoring or mentoring people yourself, it sounds like you have a wealth of experience. Get many different viewpoints, and try to learn what is right for you. Also, I've read some of your posts to HN and your blog, and several things you've written or linked to have been informative and interesting. Thank you.