We've all watched movies where they fix a programming bug like it's a piece of cake. Guess what? it's a lie. If you are a beginner or someone who wants to start a career as a software developer you need to know that programming is not easy and never let anyone tell you otherwise. Discussions among software developers usually involve two lovely words, COPY and PASTE. Its true, programming involves a lot of copying and pasting, and having the power to copy and paste code as well as making it work is like enjoying a view from a mountain top. However to enjoy the view you have to climb the mountain first which is the difficult part and the secret in this article.
There are many ways of mastering programming but here are some of the ways that I think are very helpful in becoming a better software developer.
Be enthusiastic
Breath programming, speak about programming, write about programming, and live a programming life. To become a better programmer you have to enjoy programming, you need to be strongly interested and make it part of your life. Most great developers have no social life but however, you need to know your limits and have other social activities to help you clear your mind since writing code requires a strong, fresh, and active mind.
Be part of programming communities
Be part of programming communities as well as surrounding yourself with other programmers. Read articles on programming, watch podcasts, and be part of programming meetups. There are great programming communities on every social media platform be part of them even a community of programming memes is a good idea, memes can teach you new concepts.
Ask questions
Do not hesitate to ask questions to your fellow programmers, we all learn through asking questions. You can ask questions on a platform like twitter you will get responses from experts though communities like Stackoverflow and Quora are the best for programming questions.
Start with the basics
When you start learning to program do not skip the first pages of a book or the first minutes of a video tutorial. Start with how to declare a variable before trying to save data in a database. Always learn the fundamentals then jump into frameworks and this will make your life easier.
Challenge yourself
To master programming, there is a need for consistency. You need to practice every day. The twitter dev community has a 100DaysOfCode challenge which is very helpful. You can use it for consistency sharing of updates on your programming journey and you will be able to meet experts that can help you become a better programmer.
Lastly, remember counting starts from zero and the root is at the top of the tree.
Top comments (18)
One secret that is often overlooked is that deleting code is more important than writing code.
Deleting code requires a good understanding of the system and reduces maintenance costs.
Development is not done until the excess is pruned. :)
Very good points Tawanda. 🙌
Especially as a programming beginner, it is a great idea to become part of a community.
It gives u the opportunity to meet all kinds of devs, from absolute beginners to aged professionals. U can learn from so many people things that u won't find in a book. It will take away your fears, as u will see, that u are not the only one struggling with a topic. Sharing your journey with others will make it a fun trip for all of us.
Thank you Chris. It means a lot.
Great thoughts!
We can't totally agree with this though. Quora is a terrible place for programming questions (actual code) and StackOverflow - is really good for finding questions that people have already asked - but most of the time, it's not the right place for new programmers to ask questions. It's just a false hope that they can speed things up. Consider forums like language or framework-specific like Slack, Discord, and Discuss boars. For example - you are 100x more likely to get an answer about CSS on the /cascading-style-sheets discord.
dev.to/perpetual_edu/get-help-with...
And yes - programming is difficult, but would you really say it's more difficult than anything else? What about walking? Or speaking your native language / or - anything you've already learned?
RE: Challenge yourself: We recommend this book:
True....the stack overflow site was my go to as a beginner. You need to copy paste a lot. And the being part of a community bit is also true...
Thank you for your feedback Mossay
Well done Tawanda, this is a great article! 🙌🏻
Thank you Lors
Great article and very useful thank you Tawanda!
Im glad you found it being useful Martin. Thank you for your kind words.
Just yesterday I was talking with a friend who is giving his first steps in the code world... Nice advices to share!
How about math knowledge ? please explain
Well, You only really need math if you are taking the Data Analysis of Game Development path of the more Low Level things. If you can reason things out and think about things from a logical perspective, then you can code.
Thanks for the info Tawanda. Really needed this as a beginner. The more I learn JavaScript the more I see that programming is NOT easy but the points you shared can help us make progress
Thank you for this.
I absolutely agree with all these points! Thanks for sharing
good advices :) thanks!
This is very informative article. It will help every developer and aspiring devs as well. Thanks a lot.