Things no one tells a developer who is just starting out!

Hi!

Welcome to an article wherein I try to analyze my journey and tell you things which no one told me when I was starting out as a developer.

Chances are you are either a developer who has taken the first leap of faith to learn software development or are just a curious artist(yes, I feel developers are no less than artists) who has clicked on this link out of sheer curiosity.

Whatever the reason might be, let us get down to business

Here are my top 5 advice to all the coders out there who are starting out :

1. Don’t be intimidated

Coding is a skill/hobby that anyone can pick up and master.Yes, I agree there is a lot of technical jargon involved in the beginning.But there’s always a solution to understand things that you don’t :

Google it up.

Even the best developers don’t shy away from Google and copy code from the internet. The only difference being they modify and make it better according to the scenario in which they are using it.

But yes perseverance is key. There will be days when you will be hung up on trivial bugs. The only solution is not to give up and keep debugging like a champ!

2. Feel free to break things and experiment

Write bad API’s.

Make ugly UI/UX designs.

It’s all a part of the process. Be open to feedback and thus being ready to improve.

I will tell you a short story that happened to me. I was heavily inspired by the Sherlock series (BBC One). I decided to make a fan website just for the sake of it. I had not even written my first piece of HTML until then. I read up about the website creation process and got my hands dirty.

Don’t judge but I had no clue about Responsive Design then and thus used static borders and dimensions to design the site.I was quite happy with the result, but it only lasted till I hosted it and saw it on my mobile :/

I did not give up though and still have a Love-Hate relationship with Bootstrap!

3. Explore things, don’t be hung up on just one set of Technologies that you like

Every developer has a favorite set of technologies that they love developing things in.But sometimes the project might require a programming language that you haven’t picked up yet.Don’t freak out.Take a week to explore the language and give it a shot.Who knows it might become your new favorite programming language :D

4. Take Data Structures and System Design seriously

One thing that I really regret from my 3-year long journey as a self-made developer is that I did not realize the power of Data Structures.

I was unconsciously implementing a lot of DS in my code unknowingly but now when I re-read it I realized how much better could I have turned it into.

Keep in touch with Data Structures and System Design irrespective of the type of development you do.

Be in Frontend, Backend, Mobile Engineering, ML or Full-stack. It will only help you write better code and turn you into a problem solver and not just an ordinary developer.

5.Whatever code you write, write it clean and modular

Think twice, code once!

Gonna throw up another technical jargon to check wether you are still intimidated or not :

Linting

Linting is a process by a linter program that analyzes source code in a particular programming language and flags potential problems like syntax errors, deviations from a prescribed coding style or using constructs known to be unsafe.

Came to know of this much later but linting makes your code concise and easy to read.

Document your code well.

Well, don’t write comments for the sake of others,write it for yourself :P

So that you don’t have problems on a Monday morning trying to remember what you wrote on Friday.

These were my top 5 general tips that I would like to convey to the people who are just starting out on this wild and creative journey of making things.

Always remember,

Keep learning new things and develop stuff that makes you happy..