7 Common Mistakes New Developers Make
Mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than you were before.
Wanted to learn code and become programmer?. Here is what mistakes I made from my past when I about to write my first code and hopefully this can be useful for new developer
1. Don’t know where to start and keep searching what language to learn
This is a common mistakes for many new developer. You will keep searching for the right language to learn, and waste your 48 hours or even more not doing anything — typing and learning.
Stop searching and start coding.
Every language has their advantage and disadvantage. Just start. Start open the language docs and start typing. If you are a new comer, you won’t even know what kind of developer you want to be, ie: frontend developer, backend developer, mobile developer, or even devops.
I think the first language is suitable for every new developer is the very basic HTML, CSS, and Javascript — at least you know how to write your first code and get a first glance with it.
2. Ignoring the basics
There is always an ego from a developer wanted to jump right in to the framework without knowing the basics. “But… I can learn the base language when I read the docs”. Yes, you can learn the base language when reading the framework docs, but you will waste so much time searching for some function that unfamiliar — even the basic one and you will get overwhelmed because you never learn how the code work.
3. Panicking and afraid to do some errors
I have many new developer friends, and I don’t understand one thing “Why they afraid of errors”.
Any developer — all developers in the world even the one working at Apple or Google right now — will eventually make mistakes and errors. As long as you do it at the development state just typed it. You will learn so much from those errors, and you can more understand how the language works.
4. Keep jumping from 1 language to another
Get bored — jump. Stuck and cannot solve the error — jump. Your friend telling you it’s not good language — jump.
Stop jumping and just learn it. There is no right or wrong learning new language. Remember if you are a new developer what you want is not just about understand the language, but you need to get familiar with coding interface — text only and strict type, and sharpen your logic to solve a problem.
5. Afraid asking for help and ask it the wrong way
There are so many sources you can ask for help, ie: StackOverflow, Google, specific language group on Telegram or Slack, or Reddit.
Ask the community they will help you.
“Hey Stefen you said we can ask them right? But why are they mad with us?”. The problem is you need to try to solve it by yourself first. A lot of new developer don’t even care to try it out first — facing problem and ask the community. You guys need to provide what do you guys tried and show it to the community, so they can help and guide you to better way. What’s the point of learning, if you not even try to solve it?.
6. Not putting a comment
Imagine you are learning new language through video courses, and you type the code as the instructor says. On the next day you re-open the file. And there are few lines of codes you forget what it’s use for. If this happen to you, all I can say is
Don’t forget to write a comment, and get used to it.
It’s not just at learning phase, but always comment a code / function you write. If you are working at a company and you have 3 teams working at same project, imagine if your teammate is not write a single comment for the function he wrote, and he had bad taste of naming — happen to my team. You will keep asking them and it will waste so much time.
See above code — bad code part, what’s the use of it? get someone name? or set someone name?
7. Stop practicing and give up
To become a good developer you need to keep practicing.
Never doubt yourself.
Human brain are far more better than you can imagine. It’s not easy to become a developer. Enjoy the process.
You need to know since day one you start writing your first code why you wanted to become a developer. You need to love it and want it, and not because you have to do it. It’s hard to become a developer, you will face errors, you will stuck at some code for several hours to solve, you will feel frustrated. You need to love the process and you will love it. For me the greatest feel when become a developer is not just finishing a work, but when I stuck for few hours how to solve a problem, and I found the answer and solve it.
That summarized everything. That just a small factor of becoming a good developer. It’s not always easy to learn something new, but something will change if you keep focus, and discipline. Enjoy the process, and you will fall in love with it.
Thanks for reading!.
PS: English is not my main language, but I tried my best to write it out. Suggestions / critics are very welcomed.
