Recipe from a senior developer
I have always had a passion for programming and over the years coding and I have had an on and off relationship. This was until roughly seven months ago when I discovered Andela and decided to push through with this relationship. I started my journey with a lot of intensive reading, but all the while I felt like I was walking in a dark room with no idea where the light switch was. Many frustrations and almost giving up stints later, I can finally say I have learned a lot, not everything, not even close. Could my journey have been made a little easier, I think so if I had engaged some more experienced programmers on how they mastered their craft. And this is just what I am doing now, providing the recipe for becoming a seasoned programmer as experienced by different people. So I have talked to different developers at different levels on their journey, what their approach was, what worked for them, what didn’t and what they feel would make the journey a lot easier.
For this week, I engaged a gentleman whose quote is
“Stay Hungry Stay Foolish”
His inspiration for taking on software development was because he wanted to do something that added value to society while earning a living from it. He also realized that this was something he could easily self teach given all the resources available over the internet. His first language was PHP, but he has coded in PASCAL and COBOL, Python and finally settled for Javascript. As a senior developer, he has reached that place where he can comfortably find his way around that dark room and these are his top tips:
Learn the fundamentals
He believes most beginner programmers make the mistake of diving right into learning the different programming languages without understanding the building blocks of programming. Things like data structures, algorithms, memory allocations, time and resource complexities to mention a few. To be an exceptional programmer, you have to understand these fundamentals. Having an understanding of these fundamentals makes it so much easier to learn any programming language. His take is the languages are tools that you use to apply the knowledge you have of programming to accomplish a certain task.
He advises that one needs to take some courses on the fundamentals of programming. If a full course is not something you are able to do make sure that when you are learning any language avoid skimming off the surface make it a point to understand in-depth what is being done and why.
Be a life long learner
Always thirst for knowledge, be inquisitive, seek to understand everything you do. The aim should never be to finish the task but learn something from it while doing it.
Stay humble
No matter how good you get always stay humble. Pride and arrogance will slow your learning since you will be tempted to believe you are the best so why learn.
Strive to always add value to yourself
Every single day strive to make yourself better, with each task you take on learn something new, practice your craft always. It is the only way to get good at what you do.
Build a support system
Surround yourself with like-minded people, people who will not only give you help when you have bugs but also encourage you when you want to give up and when burnout kicks in.
As our star programmer emphasizes, you need the fundamentals, it may take away some of your time, but it will pay off in the long run.
