Best DEV.to Posts for Beginners: Week of July 23, 2019

One of the reasons I've been so drawn to DEV.to over other platforms is the super encouraging and helpful community that gathers here. Initially I felt like it was going to be more a place where I sat back and watched, rather than write and contribute, but I've been so pleased to find not only helpful articles and tutorials that I understand, but also that input from new coders and devs is well-received.

I thought it would be nice to compile some of the best posts every week for those of us who still identify as #codenewbies!

First up - the DEV Community wrote a book! Your First Year in Code, edited by Isaac Lyman, is available now (and I have a chapter in it, yay!) It's full of helpful tips for navigating your code career, and though it's geared toward newbies, there's plenty for anyone to learn from.

The DEV Community Published a Book: Your First Year in Code

Ben Halpern ・ Jul 22 '19 ・ 2 min read

#meta #firstyearincode #books #beginners

What even is em?

Kayla Sween ・ Jul 25 '19 ・ 3 min read

#css #webdev #discuss

When I first learned to code lo those many years ago on Geocities, font size was (usually) defined as px. I go away for a few years, come back, and everything is measuring in em. I never really stopped to think about what it means or why it's referred to that way, but Kayla breaks it down for us!

Getting DOM Elements using JavaScript

Atta ・ Jul 25 '19 ・ 4 min read

#webdev #javascript #beginners #codenewbie

This year I decided to learn... hand-writing

Davide de Paolis ・ Jul 26 '19 ・ 2 min read

#career #selfimprovement #goals #personaldevelopment

Repeat after me: life is not only about work. It's important to have other hobbies or goals outside the office. This year I've really been focusing on improving my bullet journal doodles (and I think I'm coming along nicely, if I do say so myself) so it's great to see another DEV-er putting pen to paper as well!

How to Work with a Not so Perfect Codebase - Based on My Experience of Working in One!

Haseeb ・ Jul 25 '19 ・ 3 min read

#discuss #programming #beginners #career

Diving in to a giant, existing codebase is often one of the biggest sources of panic for beginners starting their first dev job. Keep calm and learn from others' experience.

Getting Cozy With C++

Ben Lovy ・ Jul 28 '19 ・ 10 min read

#beginners #cpp #devjournal

I'm not going to pretend that I know the first thing about C++, but I do know that it's empowering to see other community members who are more senior in their code and programming knowledge take on something new!

Python is the next language I want to take on, so I'm bookmarking lots of articles about it lately. I love the breakdown of the topics learned in the Twitch stream - plus it's replayable on Youtube and Twitch!

The Ultimate Code Review Blog Post Series

Michaela Greiler ・ Jul 25 '19 ・ 4 min read

#codenewbie #coding #beginners #programming

Three cheers for code reviews! Michaela uses her experience and tips picked up while working for Microsoft to create a comprehensive blog post series about it, including an ebook with best practices and a study guide.

Debugging - you’re doing it wrong. 10 techniques to find a bug in your code

Nikita ・ Jul 23 '19 ・ 7 min read

#productivity #challenge #explainlikeimfive

I love finding bugs, and I'll always be a bug hunter at heart. This post is great not only for newbie developers who are thinking through where their issues might be coming from, but also other employees across your company - not everyone is going to sit down and rubber duck out a problem, but they might think to open the console and take a screenshot, which is super handy for hard to recreate bugs!