How to become a good coder/programmer in 2022

Coding is an evolving discipline. That’s often what draws people to it — aside from the opportunity to work with some of the biggest companies in the world — but it also means that those in the industry need to constantly look forward.

It’s not enough to get to grips with the most in-demand languages. If you want to advance in your career, you need to start thinking about how you can become a better programmer all-round.

I am sharing my experience which i learn while coding and also share what I get adviced from other experience coders.

1. Remind yourself how much you have to learn

The first step in learning something is recognizing that you don’t know it. That sounds obvious, but experienced programmers remember how long it took to overcome this personal assumption. Too many computer science students graduate with an arrogant “I know best” bravado, a robust certainty that they know everything and the intense need to prove it to every new work colleague. In other words: the “I know what I’m doing!” attitude can get in the way of learning anything new.

2.Stop trying to prove yourself right

To become great — not just good — you have to learn from experience. But be careful, experience can teach us to repeat poor behavior and to create bad habits. We’ve all encountered programmers with eight years of experience … the same year of experience, repeated eight times. To avoid that syndrome, look at everything you do and ask yourself, “How can I make this better?”

Novice software developers (and too many experienced ones) look at their code to admire its wonderfulness. They write tests to prove that their code works instead of trying to make it fail. Truly great programmers actively look for where they’re wrong — because they know that eventually users will find the defects they missed.

After all CODING is not really hard. It is just a mindset.

3. “The code works” isn’t where you stop; it’s where you start

Yes, your first step is always to write quality software that fulfills the spec. Average programmers quit at that point and move on to the next thing.

But to stop once it’s “done” is like taking a snapshot and expecting it to be a work of art. Great programmers know that the first iteration is just the first iteration. It works — congratulations! — but you aren’t done. Now, make it better.

4. Write it three times

Good programmers write software that works. Great ones write software that works exceedingly well. That rarely happens on the first try. The best software usually is written three times:

1. First, you write the software to prove to yourself (or a client) that the solution is possible. Others may not recognize that this is just a proof-of-concept, but you do.
2. The second time, you make it work.
3. The third time, you make it work right.

5. Read code. Read lots of code

You probably expected me to lead with this advice, and indeed it’s both the most common and the most valuable suggestion for improving programming skills. What is less evident are the reasons that reading others’ code is so important.

When you read others’ code, you see how someone else solved a programming problem. But don’t treat it as literature; think of it as a lesson and a challenge. To get better, ask yourself:

• How would I have written that block of code? What would you do differently, now that you’ve seen another solution?
• What did I learn? How can I apply that technique to code I wrote in the past? (“I’d never have thought to use recursive descent there…”).

6. Work one-on-one with other developers any way you can

It helps to listen to other people. That might mean pair programming, or going to a hackathon, or joining a programming user group. When you contribute to an open source project, pay attention to the feedback you get from users and from other developers. What commonalities do you see in their criticism?

You might be lucky enough to find a personal mentor whom you can trust to guide you in everything from coding techniques to career decisions. Don’t waste these opportunities.

7. Learn techniques, not tools

Programming languages, tools, and methodologies come and go. That’s why it pays to get as much experience as you can with as many languages and frameworks as possible. Focus on the programming fundamentals, because the basics never change; pay more attention to architecture than to programming. If you feel certain that there’s only one right way to do something, it’s probably time for a reality check. Dogma can hamper your ability to learn new things, and make you slow to adapt to change.

8. Focus on quality and performance

Don’t just stop at “the code works”. Just because the code works, doesn’t mean you’re finished. The quality and performance of the code is equally or more important than making code works. The first step is to write code that works. Then you try to optimize it and then make sure you follow quality and performance best practices.

9. Test like a user

Testing your code is just as important for a programmer as writing code. So often, programmers deliver a solution and testers find bugs. The best software is tested by a programmer. And the best way to test your own code is, take off your programmer hat and put your tester hat on before you test your code.

The most important thing is practice and practice. The more you practice questions the more you learn, the more you can understabd codes.

STAY TUNE