There are quite a few articles on the web that talk about Developer Experience, I am glad it is becoming a hot topic in the tech industry, and no amount of articles will stress the importance of this.
The Definition
Developer Experience, DX, DevExp(countable and uncountable, plural developer experiences)https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/developer_experience(computing) A developer's feeling about their tools, processes, constrains etc, and how it impacts productivity.
What is it exactly?
When it comes to Developer Experience, everyone has their own, whether it is while working on company projects or using a library.
Developer Experience, like the definition above, is the experience developers have when they are working on a project. It is the experience of using tools, libraries, and frameworks to build software.
A lot of energy and resources is spent on improving the user experience (UX) of sotfware products we almost forget who's making them.
The reason UX is so important is because it affects how users feels when they are using your product, which in turn affects your satisfaction rate, user retention, conversion and how likely they are to continue using your product.
The same is true for developers.
Why does it matter?
Your product is built by developers, and if their experience is good, it will reflect on your product. If their experience is bad, it will reflect on your product.
A good Developer Experiences has a lot of aspects:
Architecture
Good software architecture is scalable, maintainable, efficient, intuitive, facilitating easy updates and expansion as demands or technologies evolve.
Tooling
Good tooling streamlines development processes, reduces overhead, and enhances productivity by providing robust support for automation, integration, and efficient problem-solving.
Documentation
Effective documentation should lead with actionable code examples, cater to different learning preferences, stay synchronized with code changes, cover both common and exceptional scenarios, be skimmable with clear comments, avoid unnecessary jargon, and progressively introduce complex topics to optimize developer experience.
Frameworks and Libraries
Frameworks and libraries should facilitate rapid onboarding, easy updates, and intuitive defaults while providing comprehensive error feedback and flexible configuration options to enhance the developer experience.
APIs
APIs should prioritize stability with clear versioning and communication on changes, while also providing easy access and testing capabilities to enhance developer interaction and efficiency.
In Summary
Their experience will always start with:
- Their onboarding into the codebase of your product.
- Starting a new project with X library or framework.
Examples
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✅ Good DX: On his first day, a developer follows a well-documented README, and is able to setup the project in minutes. He is able to understand the codebase, and is able to make his first contribution in a day. This smooth boost his confidence and productivity.
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❌ Bad DX: On his first day, a developer follows a README that is hard to read and outdated, and is unable to setup the project without running into issues and has to seek help for basic tasks. He is being redirected to multiple developers for help, and is unable to make his first contribution in a day potentially affecting his long-term engagement with the project
This article by Lee Robinson, "What Makes a Great Developer Experience?" is a great read on the topic.