4 things I got after 3 months becoming a web developer
Some questions may never be answered. But you can jot down any thoughts which are meaningful on your career.
This is a small handful of notes in the beginning of my developer’s journey. It’s pretty simple to read, there are 4 things, short and sweet for beginner. I’m going to list all of these below:
1. Asking yourself is part of your journey.
2. Don’t be scared! How to approach large code-base?
3. Making communication, the best way to save your time.
4. Creating good (or bad) memories to look back on in the future.
1. Asking yourself is part of your journey
As a developer, have you ever asked yourself why do you sit here? Trying to read and understand someone else’s coding logic, writing few lines of code and talking to other developers every day. In early part of notes, I will try responding this question from my experiences.
Searching in my mind to find the answer come up with lots of questions. I’m going to arrange these questions and my answer in time order since I had the first idea to be here.
Q (24 months ago): Do I want to become a coder?
A: Yes. I’m not good at what I learned in economics university. I need to study new skills. Learning programming is such a good investment.
Q (18 months ago): Do I need to register for a class code?
A: Yes. Self-learning doesn’t work for me at the time. I need to learn faster. Joining a class probably helps me get basic knowledge and connect new relationships.
Q (12 months ago): Should I focus on a programing language?
A: Yes. I’m aware that my class code teaches me so much stuff. Choosing a specific language is my priority. JavaScript sounds good for me. At least now I have basic knowledge to code along with awesome online courses.
Q (6 months ago): Should I find a web development company to train?
A: Yes. Joining a company is the precious experiences. I really want to code as a developer. I see many companies on hire. I had few pet projects in school. Why don’t I give it a try?
Every part of life is making by choice. You’ve never known where you are if you picked another choice in that moment. For me, after answering all questions by choosing “yes” (and being lucky) which landed me a first job as a developer in Linagora company 3 months ago. Of course, new question is coming to me:
Q (3 months ago): Can I understand and use expertly source code of my company in few months?
A: Yes. I can do this. But wait … there’s more!
2. Don’t be scared! How to approach large code-base?
The code base of my company is large, complex for newcomer and with many integrations to external services. How the company manages source code also looks new to me. I quickly realized I’m going to run into big obstacles.
Setting up web development environment and reading code are the first problems. Reading a ton of codes easily make you lose track of what you’re trying to achieve. Sometimes, when adding new modules or services to improve, this leads quite elusive bugs. Most of them are really silly from set-up process but it makes me get overwhelmed.
Git, debugging, testing skills could not be given enough attention when I am in small project. But when working in production, that spends a lot of time on product development process.
So much stuff needs to be got familiar. There are some approach I think it practical for newcomer.
- Use the product and look at design and functional specs, if any.
- Improve basic skills when working with team such as reading code, debugging, testing, git. It’s really useful in long-term.
- Have a respect for previous code, try to understand it in clear way.
- How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you grab an large code base? One byte at a time.
Come back to my question on the first day as a developer. I asked a wrong question. I’ve never understood large code-base in few months. Due to lacking of information, I made a wrong approach to this match and wasted a lot of time and confidence. Therefore, before asking myself any question, I need to make sure to have enough information.
How should I have valuable information?
3. Making communication - best way to save time.
It’s good to know that you are in great team where you can share and learn anything about product. For me, joining a great team is the most influential thing for new developer. With the team, you can easily make effective communication. From choosing the best way that solve issues in many approachs with reasonable explains to giving you good advice to adjust your attitude in working environment. A lot of things to get if you are lucky to be there. On the top of that, you will always get the chances to ask to yourself the right question in your career.
4. Creating good (or bad) memories to look back on the future
Learning to code looks like climbing mountain. We always head forwards on the top of mountain. We try to learn everyday. We sometimes stop to ask yourself what’s next to go. But when you feel tired to code, you always have time to look back all the thing you have done. It’s a wonderful scene.
Thanks for reading.
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