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My Advice to Beginner Devs

Brian Emilius on August 03, 2019

This article was originally posted on www.brianemilius.com/advice-to-beginner-devs. Visit www.brianemilius.com/blog for more content. I have be...
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Damir Franusic

Good take on web in general and I totally get the following:

I can get so frustrated over a problem that I am ready to quit

I sometimes feel like this:
img

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Brian Emilius

Haha, I feel this!

I try very hard to get my students to understand that failures and hitting a brick wall is just an opportunity to learn and become better. It's a hard truth to accept though.

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Damir Franusic

I applaud your effort but most of them will probably experience burnout eventually, regardless of your advice. Hitting a brick wall is actualy quite good if you know how to handle it. Propper handling will increase experience and knowledge of what works and what doesn't. The other side of the coin is probably best described by the animated gif I posted before; that kind of result should of course be avoided.

I am no stranger to breaking keyboards and damaging screens, unfortunately. 🙄

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Muhammad

Great Guide Man, especially the part of being curious, this is what i have seen by helping others, that people who tend to fiddle and experiment more have a greater tendency to progress faster. I always tell them anything if you break that is software can just be restored, so dont worry.

Building a portfolio, really true, its hard once you in a starting stage what to do, i always say, trying helping people or helping Non-profits achieve what they want with your expertise, thats a great way to interact and build a portfolio.

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Brian Emilius

Thank you, Muhammad 👋

Maybe I should make a list of pet project and starter portfolio ideas next 😁

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Muhammad

Perfect Dude, let me know when they are ready, i`d love to work with you on it.

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Brian Emilius
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Muhammad

Great, I `ll check it out.. ASAP

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Don Alfons Nisnoni • Edited

every time I make something by coding, I always have a whisper in my brain, like, "I'm not smart, I'm not creative, my thinking speed is slow, there are better ways than you do, but you can't think up to that point, and your code a mess ". sometimes that makes me pessimistic about being able to work in a company ...

thank's it make me feel better..

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Brian Emilius

I can definitely relate to this - and I've been doing this for 25 years.
We call it the "Imposter Syndrome" and I think it's something we all struggle with at one time or another.

There are a lot of great articles here on dev.to about dealing with it 👍

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Don Alfons Nisnoni

yes... right.. and this one is very helped me... thanks...

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Brian Emilius

I'm glad you found it helpful 😄

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Brian Emilius

Thank you, Charlie 👋

I do the exact same thing with my own website. At the moment I am diving into React and my website is my playground for it!

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nulf

For me it really helped to start go for a walk 1-3 times(5-15min) a day just to get away from my monitors and the problem I've been stuck at for hours.

Doesn't matter if a few team mates join me for the walk or if I just drift into the wonderful world of music. This always give me a new perspective on the problem or atleast a new hint on where to keep digging

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Brian Emilius

A side bonus is the exersice 😄

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Carlos Núñez

There's a subtle detail you missed because maybe you give it by granted but I see it every day around developers.

Make it work, yes as fast as you can even. Nonetheless, the developer has to understand what's going on. If not it's worthless.

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Brian Emilius

Oh, I absolutely agree.

You have to know what you're doing and why. I think what I am trying to say is that there are many solutions to a problem. If you found one of them; Great! In time you will learn to do the same thing a dozen different ways, but as a beginner, this should not be the focus.

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rennjay soterio

Great content

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Brian Emilius

Thank you, Rennjay 👋

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Mohammed Sadiq

This was brilliant and succinct! Well written Brian.

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Brian Emilius

Thank you, Mohammed 👋