5 Things to keep in mind as a Developer

Because in the long run, consistency of efforts wins.

“Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.” — Martin Fowler

So this is my first article on medium. I am a self-taught programmer with 4 years of coding experience. I want to share my experience with other developers across the world, so I decided to express my ideas through articles.

Here are the 5 most important things to keep in mind while you are learning to code.

1. Once a Beginner, always a Beginner.

Whenever we are learning something new, we consider ourselves as a beginner. Its okay, but reminding yourself that you are a beginner, for a very long time is not OK. It limits your growth. You cannot escape your comfort zone because deep in your mind, you are not ready to get challenges. Its a part of the process, but for a very short period.

Josh Kaufman a famous author and business coach, wrote a book ”The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything…Fast”. In his book he explained that it takes 20 hours to learn something new. So in my opinion after 20 hours of dedication you cannot call yourself a beginner.

2. Create your Own School of Thoughts.

After gaining knowledge, try to sort out your own observation on the things you’ve learned so far. Make your own school of thoughts, try to teach people. Create something unique, there are 1000 ways you can. Discover tools and techniques that work for you. Make your own unique work ethic. Make deep understanding of core concepts and try to find new stuff in it, there’s always something hidden under the hood. Try to make things easy for others because complexity works as a barrier.

3. Don’t Blame the Language.

We all know that computers only understand one language, the language of 0’s and 1’s. The programs you write in different languages is just a layer of abstraction above it, that’s why we call these languages as High-Level Languages. The computer only cares about binary digits. Apart from programming, In practical world, language is the way to communicate, to convey your idea by means of words. Same for the computers, you have an idea(set of instructions) and you want your computer to perform actions based on provided idea(instructions). Its not the Language that makes programs appear simple but its the Programmer that makes the language appear simple.

Although choosing a programming language depends upon your task, future goal and your area of development. Apart from that, there is no such comparison between programming languages i.e “Python is better than Java, because its more human-friendly”. that’s completely Rubbish. Pick one and start learning.

4. Think before, you code.

The biggest challenge while learning to code is to write the code that not only solves the problem but the code itself is also maintainable. The only way to achieve this, is to think about the problem before you write the code. Clear all your doubts about the problem. Its not just about getting the job done, but its about the better possible ways to get the job done. Writing a software/system is more like writing a poem/book, if its not making any sense, then it doesn’t matter how much words it contain, how lovely the title is! Good solutions are maintainable.

I know that developers are forced to deliver the product before deadline but performance and maintainability of a software product is much important. A developer better knows that performance is more important than deadlines.

5. Focus on Active learning.

It all begins with watching a tutorial, reading a book, getting a lecture. I mean these are common practices used for learning programming stuff. Its good to have such resources but the only way to get full advantage of these resources is to adopt Active Learning approach. The moment you’re watching a tutorial, try to implement what you’ve learned. This way you’ll be able to know your basic level of understanding. If you are learning a programming language, the best way is to build projects. Start with small and simple but at least get your hands dirty.

After just watching a tutorial or reading a book, you can’t say that now I am a programmer unless you practically implement what you learn and have a better understanding of it.

Thank you so much for reading! Follow me for more Self-taught developer writings and inspiration, you can also find me on Instagram, see you there!