Some Tips for Newbie Software Developers
This article is for anyone new to the field of software development. The article mainly contains tips to make the software development and learning process easier, based on my 4.5 years of overall software engineering and learning experience, including 3.5 years of industry experience.
Most importantly, I want to mention that all the points I have included in this article are my personal opinions and anyone can challenge them with their experiences.
Just Google it.
This is a kind of life learning. If you want to learn something new, Google it. Google will show you how to do it because literally, Google knows everything. This is an essential skill these days and you should learn it. You have to use this skill throughout your career, not just as a newbie and practising this will make your programming life easier.
(Googling is really about doing research. The power of Google’s search engine algorithm makes this ‘research’ part easy.)
Don’t start with tutorials.
When starting to learn a new framework or language, beginners usually try to follow tutorials first.
It is not a good way to start learning. Because most tutorials miss some important points mentioned in the documentation that you need to know and also do not cover all concepts. Some tutorials are tightly coupled with some versions of frameworks. The most important thing is that if you are addicted to tutorials, you cannot do anything without watching tutorials.
My advice is to start with documentation and figure out the scope and then use tutorials wisely only if you have to.
If starting without a tutorial is difficult, try a tutorial with a recommendation from an experienced developer or a senior.
Accept errors. Don’t be afraid of errors.
Errors are the most annoying and beautiful thing in programming at the same time. Occurring errors mean you learn how to resolve those. Then the errors can no longer block your coding process.
When an error occurs first read the error and description, if you can understand and resolve it then do so. Otherwise, google it and it will direct you mainly to the links to the two websites below and you will find the answer on those websites.
If you’re using an open-source framework, it’s better to look for answers from github.com as the developer of that framework is involved in the conversation.
Note the errors and solutions.
This is a technique I used in the early days of my career. Here all you have to do is create a new doc and write down the errors and solutions you got while coding. This will help you quickly deal with previously resolved errors and save a lot of time as you will know about certain errors and ways to resolve them. If you got help from someone to fix an error you should log that error. You should only do this until you are familiar with debugging.
I used a google doc to do it, you can do it your way.
Don’t try to skip between things regularly.
In the early stages of your career, I suggest you pick one framework or language and stick to it for a few months and try to gain in-depth knowledge of it. Then switch to another one and you will feel that you can easily learn new things after doing so. That is because most of the concepts are the same for every framework and language.
These are my tips for someone early in their software development career. Hope this will help you.
Thanks for reading..! Happy debugging..!
Thank you Evindu Rajapaksha and Shashiniabeywickrama for helping me in writing a better article by proofreading.
