How to master developing

Once we know and understand programming basic fundamentals, we have the basis to master developing. In this article, we will be learning how to do it. Before continue, maybe we can take a look at How to learn to code: programming basic fundamentals where we can learn about it being this the first thing we have to know in order to be a top developer. We will be in the right path by staying focus on learn and understand this world first.

Pick up and study a programming language

A programming language is a set a rules and grammars that it is used to tell computer what we expect it to do. That is, they are used to implement algorithms in order to solve computing problems. There are an open wide range of programming languages and ​​all of them have a set of instructions and rules. Being an instruction an order to computer to do something, meanwhile a program is a sequence of instructions in some programming language designed to solve a problem.

An important part of learn to code is research and preparation to know which programming languages ​​exist and which one best suits the needs of our projects. We can find further information and suggestion in the “Which are trending programming languages?” article. But it must be clear that if we do not know how to solve problems, we will not be able to write an efficient program in any programming language.

Practice with coding challenge problems…and practice…and practice again

Now that we have all basic programming fundamentals clear -even though we are still learning – it is time to start solving common problems and practice all that we can; the more problems we solve, the better it would be our expertise level and confident about our programming skills. A good developer never stops practicing and learning.

All over the internet we can find many websites that provides programming exercises based on common problems such as TopCoder, Coderbyte, project Euler, HackerRank, Geeksforgeeks, CodeChef. Exercism.io, Codewars, LeetCode, among others. If we feel comfortable with our skills already also we can try participating in some programming contents available online; by doing this, we will enhance our programming skills.

Study code from someone else

There are so many open source code on internet that we can explore and study, by this way we will learn how experts do the job. By reverse-engineering, debugging and testing code form someone else, we can understand so much more and master programming. We can go to most popular repositories or communities like Github or Stack Overflow among others; and in return it would be nice if we can share our code back with the community.

By doing this, we will find different solutions to the same problem and with different styles and approaches; however, in the world of developers there are certain conventions and standards that they often (and should) follow. So, after some codes from other people that we have analyzed we will be noticing certain trends and things in common between them. Because part of being a good programmer is that another person who sits down to evaluate our code can understand it as quickly as possible. Most important of our responsibilities is to generate efficient, flexible, understandable and easily maintainable code over time.

Master developing by making personal projects

Now is the perfect moment to seeing the fruits of our labors by building projects with some useful applications. There are a plenty of developing environments and frameworks from we can choose and make a project using them. Actually, this is what it is about software development. Our coding skills proof will be in our programming project portfolio. Start small, but think big.

Get a mentor

Do not bother if we do not know someone close to programming world, there are a lot of programming community full of people who are willing to help and demonstrate what they know to others programmers. Or we can look up and pick up a YouTube channel from someone that we can contact for feedback and general advice.

But when looking for a mentor we have to be clear of what we want: what do we want to accomplish? What are our immediate goals? Are we looking for someone to help us learn to code? Do we want a mentor who can help prepare us for further knowledge?

If we have others developer colleagues or friends, the easiest way to find a mentor is by chatting with them, especially if they have more experience. We have to be open about our doubts, goals and even ask them if they are open to taking on a new men tee.

Explore available resources

Now we will realize since we decided to become programmers and master development, we have not stopped researching and learning content about it. At this point, we can explore all the Computer Science domains and look what suits us better or we find it more interesting. There are so many branches such as Machine Learning, Web or Mobile Development, Blockchain, and so on.

For each topic, there are so many available resources: online courses, tutorials, communities, YouTube channels, just to mention a few of them. The good news is that there is a forum for every language and an answer to almost every imaginable question or, at least, a solution.

And Finally

We have to remember, most important thing a new programmer can do is to understand basic fundamentals, and to be sure what and why they want to learn. Do not be like most people that think programming it is just decide which is the best programming language and begin to code. We have to focus on learn and understand this world first in order to master it, because it is not just typing code!

Let’s learn whatever we want to and get our hands dirty with fun coding!