The first thing you need to understand as a developer is that you will never stop learning and you will never stop growing. The very nature of this industry dictates that when you stop growing, you’ll die. That means it’s a constant learning curve.
There are times when the learning curve will be steep and times when it’ll be gentle. The fact that you are reading this means that either you may be at the beginner or intermediate level; however, the contents of this article may also be useful to those at an advanced level because again, it’s a constant learning curve. You may have let loose a few basics, and it won’t hurt revisiting them. Cross your fingers, let’s click RUN, and hope that this program works.
Routines
In development, depending on the language you are learning, a routine could be a function, procedure, or subroutine. However, in this context, I’m referring to behavioral habits as a developer. To attain the degree of expertise you desire as a developer, you need to develop routines, habits, or procedures for growth.
That means something like coding every day for a certain amount of time, reading other developers’ codes, or reading books on the area you are focusing on; stuff like that. Development is a field that demands constant refreshing just like a high DPI gaming monitor.
The instance you start slacking, things will start popping off your head, and you may soon find yourself an empty array. Find a way of establishing a routine that will keep you focused and on the right track. This habit is especially important if you are at the beginner or intermediate level. It’s the only way you’ll advance.
Learn from those who’ve made it
I think this is common sense to all developers because most people in this field were inspired by someone who did something cool or awesome. I think this is true for 99% of all developers.
It’s that simple; learn from the experts in your field. Learn stuff about them and know how they did it. Mimic their habits and fake it until you make it.
Visit IT discussion boards to learn from other developers and find solutions to problems that may be hindering you from making progress. Attend developer events to meet and interact with others like you. From such events, you can meet accomplished developers who may inspire or even discover you, and you may come across other developing developers who you can work with to help each other grow. Also, remember online platforms like Reddit, GitHub, Facebook, Twitter, or TreeHouse, where you can interact with other developers worldwide to share solutions to problems.
You learn best by doing
Coding involves a lot of writing and problem solving. You will get nowhere by just reading, watching tutorials, or attending developer events. You must practice what you’ve learned. You’ll learn way much more by doing the things you’ve learned halfway through a tutorial or book than by reading the entire book or watching the entire tutorial without applying anything.
Practice! Practice! Practice! Look for projects to complete and even try to implement those ideas you have in your head and see how things will go. You never know, you could come up with the next big thing.
No one likes endless loops
Endless loops happen when you code a loop without a breakpoint. The problem with endless loops is that they prevent progress. The program won’t be able to do anything else unless they are terminated.
Don’t try to do things that have already been done because you’ll be doing nothing by creating the same thing. Don’t reinvent the wheel. If already, a code somewhere can accomplish a task you want to take care of, use it. I get that you can learn a lot by writing your own code that does something that another code already does, but you don’t have all the time in the world to rewrite code.
Save time by reusing code and only writing new code when none exists that can accomplish a task that’s important to your project. Furthermore, it’s much easier to modify a code that already works to suit your project than writing the entire code from scratch. Writing code is often easy, but debugging can be very time consuming. Save yourself unnecessary trouble.
Remember that you are Human
Computers can run code all day long for centuries if we give them the proper care and resources. However, human beings need fresh air, fresh food, and other human beings to stay alive and healthy. Remember to take care of yourself because if your health is wanting, it will affect your work, and that will be a hindrance to becoming your best developer self.
