On the DotDev site there's an article from Sharon Steed with a reminder to the developers out there - it's not all about the code (despite what it may seem like in the job description).

Soft skills get a bad rap; especially in tech. Code has always been king, but software constantly changes. The need to be good communicators and generally pleasant coworkers will always be there. That’s why it’s important to dedicate parts of your day to improving those skills that don’t involve code. No matter how great of a dev you are, you aren’t going to to be nearly as successful if you are difficult to be around. Here are a few soft skills crucial to working in tech.

She covers four major topics around these "soft skills", what they are and what you can do to help improve them:

• Being Accessible
• Solving People Problems
• Keeping Your Ego in Check
• Considering the Big Picture

She ends the post by reminding developers that code is only "one part of the machine" and that by developing soft skills you can much more easily further your career as a developer, regardless of how amazing or clean or manageable your code may be.

The SitePoint Web blog has a recent post from Matthew Setter offering some helpful hints on working with other people's code. In it he shares suggestions ranging from the technical out to a bit more "learning oriented" to get up to speed on concepts and techniques.

Dealing with code created by other people is a fundamental skill for a developer. Give it a year and other people’s code could even be your own. Today I’m going to look at some of the best approaches for how to deal with other people’s code, read legacy code, effectively. It’s not an easy topic to cover.

He's broken it down into a list of several different topics, each with their own descriptions and links to tools or reading resources for more information:

• Interact
• Observe
• Run Tests
• Fix Bugs designed for Newcomers
• Find Available Resources
• Use a Good IDE
• Read Books & Blogs
• Contribute to Documentation
• Be Considerate

He puts some good emphasis on that final point, reminding the reader that it's not just years of experience that make for a better developer, it's more about skill.