Become a good developer with these 10 powerful Tips
Programming has become one of the most popular careers, owing to the rapid advance in technology.
You definitely will agree with me that it has grown so much that as a developer, you are held in high esteem and people envy the fat paycheck that comes with it.
Good developers don’t only write good codes they do more than that. They create value.
Those who have good speaking skills are sought after as keynote or main speakers at tech events and this boosts your network and credibility, in addition to the monetary benefits attached. You may even get to fly to other regions and countries if you are really good at it.
Learning and becoming good at programming especially with a new language is quite overwhelming and can be discouraging if you aren’t doing the right things.
Many people (even people we see as experts) still stumble on their way. This is because there are a few basic things they missed (and still missing).
In this article, I will be sharing ten useful tips you can adhere to in order to become a good developer:
- Start with the basics and spend more time there.
For every new thing, the fundamentals are very important. (Just as the foundation of a house is most important).
A common mistake many beginners make in any learning process is to skip out the basics or spend less time with the fundamentals of a subject!
While this may not work in some areas of knowledge, that’s not the case with programming! The basics are so important that if you skip them, you’ll hardly understand what the language is all about. This includes Variables and Constants, Data types, Arrays, Booleans and Comparisons, Operators and Operands, Type conversions, Control flow, Functions, and Methods, etc. Learn the basics but also spend time mastering them.
2. Do not get tired of practicing.
Practice they say makes perfect and it holds true for anything worth doing.
I have come this far because of the time I have invested in practicing the things I love doing. In the case of programming, it is very critical to practice, since your first exposure to it is in theory, but to master it, you need hands-on practicals of what you are learning.
3. Learn from the BUGS
Encountering bugs in any software you are writing is inevitable. It shows you are human and you are trying to communicate to a computer that doesn’t understand human language (but 0’s and 1’s).
This experience is part of a well acceptable and recurring situation.
It is recurring because no matter your level as a developer, you will still encounter some kind of bug. To be called a good developer, you need to learn and master the skill of quickly discovering the errors and correcting/solving them.
When you encounter a bug and finally debug it, you have found a good way to avoid the error, wherever you encounter it. They help you learn what needs to be done and how best it is done.
4. Make use of online resources
The advent of the internet has made learning simpler. All you need is to just make out the time and then be patient enough to dig out the information you need.
A lot of learning platforms are even free and give you the privilege to learn from any location, using any internet-connected device, and even at your own pace.
You have the resources you need at your beck and call (as long as you have a data subscription, of course). Most of them award certificates at the end.
Few examples of such platforms are Google Search, Youtube, Udemy, Udacity, FreeCodeCamp, PluralSight, SlateCube, CodeCademy, EdX, and so on!
5. Seek out guidance from others when you are stuck.
Seeking help when you are stuck isn’t such a bad thing, not a bad thing at all.
As with many professions, a fellow developer will be very willing to share his/her knowledge with you.
No one knows it all.
There are people who have been there before you, have gotten good at it and have learned a better way to do things.
Communicate with them, ask questions, and allow them to put you through. That’s a good way to learn and perfect in whatever you do.
6. Acquire a good mentor!
Mentorship is a very crucial aspect of learning, no matter the field of endeavor.
Getting not just a mentor but a good one will help you scale up in your learning.
He or She has probably become an expert in the field and will occasionally (if not constantly), guide you in your path and ensure you are doing the right thing.
Before long, you may start doing things in the person’s pattern. It is not entirely bad, that’s why I titled this section “Acquire a good mentor”. You can even have more than one mentor if you wish. That way you get to see things from different perspectives.
7. Embrace challenges, they make you better.
Challenging situations always bring out the best in people.
Most people got to shine and outshine others because of the challenges they were able to overcome. I don't entirely mead bad situations. What I mean here is, in your journey of programming, there will definitely come a time when you will need to use plugins, APIs, frameworks you haven't had to work with before.
You may get asked to develop software you haven’t done before. Declining them means no growth. After all, people learn things they’ve never done before by actually doing them.
Accept challenges. Build hard projects, that’s how you become an expert.
8. Comment your codes and document your success
While some people may not agree to this point because they’ve gotten used to not using comments when they are coding, it is really a best practice to add comments to your codes.
No matter how professional you are, if you are not the code commenting type and you come back to some code you wrote a month back, you will surely get lost. You’d have to spend extra time to understand your own code before you can do anything.
At some point, you’d need to also document things you’ve done successfully and how you did them. This would completely eliminate trial and error.
9. Collaborate, Contribute especially to open source projects.
Collaboration and contributing to software development, especially to open-source is very important if you must scale up in the industry.
You will agree with me that the most useful software and platforms were not done by just one person even if he or she began the project alone.
There will always be approaches you may adopt that others didn’t think of, and some they know, but you don’t.
Collaboration increases the chances of success in a project and when you make contributions, you are creating and adding value.
10. Take breaks. Rest and get refreshed.
Rest is very important for software developers, no, everyone!
At some point during hard work, you need to rest. Even God had to rest on the 7th day after the big task of creating the world.
So you see, taking rest is an essential task every developer should consider; whether you are learning or building real projects. You get to rejuvenate and do your job faster.
Determine to adhere to these essential tips and you’ll definitely become good at programming, other things even.
I hope you learned a lot.
Is there a good tip you think developer newbies can also adhere to in order to scale up? Please do comment below so others can learn from you too.😉
Thanks for reading!
