Traps that Aspiring Developers have to be careful of

Some learning to code traps that I’ve seen aspiring developers fall into (including myself).

Never finishing anything

A friend of mine, Corey McCarty, talked about the trap of never finishing anything. I want to quote his words “There is a certain amount of work that you won't understand until you finish a project. There's even more that you will learn by 'finishing' a project and having to come back and make changes after you've forgotten how it works.” I can’t stress how true this is.

Giving up to soon

A trap that I commonly see is the attitude of “I came, I tried, I failed, I give up”. Coding is all about “learn, fail, learn, fail, learn, partial success, fail, fail, Aha moment, learn”, then wash and repeat. You have to have resilience and grit to get to the point of being able to achieve what you dream of.

Not having a developer's growth mindset

A second trap that I’ve seen is aspiring developers barely dipping their toe into the tech universe. The developers who I’ve seen thrive are the ones who did a head first dive off the top diving board into the tech industry. They are swimming in learning, exposure, meeting new people, volunteering for experiences, and building things. They’re all in as much as they can handle and then some. I’m not saying to give up your family and friends, but I’m advocating adapting your lifestyle and habits to what you are prioritizing. You sow what you reap.

Not learning how to build for others

A trap that I fell into was building solely for myself. While this is a good thing most of the time, building for others to use/consume is utilizing a totally different and valuable skill set. The flip side of this trap is depending on others' appreciation of your work to be the only measure of value or success.