Reading code

Another way to keep your programming skills sharp when you may not be coding as much is to read other people's code. When performing the software architect role, you may find yourself coding less than when you played a developer role.

Performing code reviews for your project will keep you intimately familiar with the implementations created by the development team. Looking beyond your project, examine high-quality code that experienced professionals have written for other projects. Open source projects make it easy to analyze all types of code. Select a project that is of interest to you and examine the code.

Watching live-streamed programming sessions or online videos from well-known and respected programmers can inspire you and give you good ideas that you might be able to use in your own code. Pair programming with colleagues is another way to become familiar with code that you have not seen before.