Dailymotion’s developers New Year’s Resolutions for 2019
This new year is an opportunity to sit back and reflect upon our daily work. We spoke about what we really wanted to improve in 2019 and here is our New Year’s resolutions list. What do you think?
Clean our code
In 2019, our code will be clean and proud.
What’s the point of being fast today if it slows us down tomorrow? For this New Year, we are committed to respecting these 10 developer’s commandments:
- Do more unit and integration tests
- Avoid code complexity as much as possible
- Don’t wait 6 months to fix low priority bugs
- Always try to reduce the technical debt
- Regularly check monitoring and alerting thresholds
- Comment our code more wisely
- Create smart functions instead of duplicating code
- Communicate with each other to avoid mistakes
- Accept the fact that we’re just humans and ask for code reviews from peers
- Create and update more documentation
Learn something new
In 2019, each and every one of us will explore a new language, a new framework or a new methodology.
At Dailymotion, we truly believe in continuous learning. We may not need this technology today, but what about tomorrow? It’s all about thinking out of the box and being curious. Here are a few (free) good practices that we’d like to establish in 2019:
- Read and watch more about tech
Internet is an amazing source of knowledge, but it needs to be tamed. There are too many things published each day, it’s impossible to read them all. In 2019, we’ll customize and filter our news feeds using app automation tools, like IFTTT.
- Make access to knowledge easier
Last year we created a free access library to share books, DVDs and games at Dailymotion. This year, we’d like to do the same for professional books and create an internal newsletter to share more interesting content within the team.
Learning also means getting out of our comfort zone and being inspired by different people. We selected a short list of books, talks and great initiatives that inspired us in 2018 and that we wish to highlight in 2019:
- Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
- The Man Who Wanted to Be Happy, by Laurent Gounelle
- The LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Method
- The poetry of programming, by Linda Liukas
- How great leaders inspire action, by Simon Sinek
- The Root Me challenges
- The Story of Charity: Water, by Scott Harrison
Share our experience
In 2019, we’ll share our expertise to benefit the community.
We already do a lot of actions to better the Developer Community. In 2019, we want to go further on this track:
- Write more articles
At Dailymotion, we encourage every single developer to write an article about his work. In 2019, we’ll continue to follow this good practice and publish authentic and original blog posts on this Dev Portal and on our Medium account.
Fear of missing out on our developers’ articles? Follow us on Twitter.
- Speak at more public events
It’s never easy to jump ahead and speak in public. That’s why we want to initiate internal training sessions in 2019 to help our developers feel more confortable with this exercise. We will start with internal short talks, then small local events or meetups and then big conferences to share Dailymotion history, projects and success with the community.
- Mentoring more young developers
Dailymotion is full of skilled developers willing to share their knowledge. Encouraging mentorship this year could be a great way to highlight and reward the abilities of seniors while accelerating the growth of juniors. We partnered with Simplon (a french digital school) in 2018 and we hope to connect with more developer incubators in 2019.
Take care of ourselves
In 2019, we’ll take time to respect our inner rhythms and needs.
It’s easier said than done… while we’re lucky to have a comfortable workspace at Dailymotion, we can still improve our screen time:
- Adopt better postures
In 2019, we’ll take better care of our spines: poor postures contributes to increase back and shoulder pain. Some of us already started the trend of using monitor stands, footrests, ergonomic chairs and computer mice. Aurélien is even working on a fitness ball for back support (and fun).
- Take a break sometimes
It’s recommended to take a 5mn break every hour. One of our ideas for 2019 is to create a clock program that will remind us to leave our screens when needed. Our team is also starting to explore the Pomodoro technique to improve productivity.
- Attend yoga classes
Every Wednesday we have free yoga classes, let’s use them. Meditation, relaxation and sport are excellent ways to keep a healthy soul in a healthy body. In 2019, we’ll care more about our chakras and try to do the Kapôtasana posture.
Last but not least, there is one resolution that our team wanted to share with you:
… 8K! 
What are your New year’s resolutions for 2019?
Let’s hear them in the comments!