If you are new to the programming world, you might wonder what you should do to improve your skills quickly. In this article, I share a few practical tips on how to improve your journey.
Know your literature
Reading is the most powerful tool. Read technical books, review the documentation, and read the source code (your old, your colleague’s, open source code).
You need to know your literature and, more importantly, understand it. If there is anything, you don’t get — no worries, dive deeper into it. Don’t hesitate to ask for help.
Get better at solving problems
Software development is not just writing code. It is a process of solving problems by writing code. Start with basic algorithms and data structures, and keep improving your skills. Basics are the key to understanding the software development process and the tools you will likely use in the future.
Consider taking online courses, using platforms (like SPOJ or Exercism) and participating in hackathons. Look for patterns, and understand them, so you can easily apply them while solving new problems.
Write lots of code
Every complex piece of software is just a set of small parts connected logically and functionally. Start small, then go bigger. Make yourself a habit of coding daily, solve problems and apply your knowledge as you go.
Writing code is a great way to learn and understand new concepts. In time, when you are ready, move towards more and more complex projects, which will introduce new challenges.
Practice refactoring
Writing code is good. Improving it is better. It is not enough to write code to become a good developer. Take time to review things you worked on previously. Look for pieces of code used in many places, isolate them, and restructure your code to make it more efficient and readable without losing functionality.
Refactoring is not something people particularly enjoy, yet it will help you understand new concepts and help you write the next piece of code better.
Discuss your work
Learning from others is of great importance and utility to you and the people around you. Don’t hesitate to share your progress with your peers. Discuss different solutions and analyse them, as there is a good chance you might come up with an even better solution together.
Work on projects that matter to you
Improving your skills is hard work and a lengthy process, sometimes frustrating. That’s why working on something you are passionate about is so important.
When you are beginning your journey, don’t hesitate to create a small project for yourself. It might be a library of the code you already wrote and would like to use in the future or a project that addresses a problem you’d like to solve. Either way, it will be satisfying.
Do not stop there
Software engineering is an ever-growing, dynamic industry, so there is always something new to learn. That is why there are always new ways to improve. Do not hesitate to try new things, or at least don’t fix your whole attention on purely one language/technology. If you do, it might just hold you back in your career.
