Become The Best Software Developer You Can Using These Simple 5 Methods
The job title ‘software developer’ is a very recently created job title in the scope of human history. If you are a software developer or are planning to be one, congratulations! You are among the first few generations pioneering this exciting new industry.
In a world where digital fluency is almost as important as literacy, schools are adopting mandatory programming classes for children from an earlier and earlier age. This is both exciting and dizzying for future prospects.
It’s not hard to imagine 100 year down the line that instead of DIY being performed on a practical, building level, revised lines of code will be implemented to fix a shoddy 3D-rendered window fitting. This is a fantastical thing to imagine, but it highlights the current trend of everything becoming digital to a vastly extrapolated degree.
Not matter how you see the future developing, if you’re reading this article, you are surely convinced of the benefits of learning to develop software. But how do you become the best software developer you are capable of being?
Answer? With these 5 simple steps.
Be Passionate
Much like with any discipline, you get out of it exactly what you put into it. You need to be passionate about making many mistakes, erring and falling short of your intended first goal. You need to be aware that you might spend up to six hours looking for a misplaced comma in your bulky lines of testing code. The only way you can weather these storms of coding adversity is if you truly, madly, deeply care for the craft. Think Neo seeing the Matrix code.
Learn As Many Languages As You Can
A competent coder has many languages in his arsenal. The best part is, once you learn a few languages correctly, you can begin to apply that logic to many others, and slowly your coding knowledge becomes vast and numerous. If you’re completely new, consider beginning to learn Python or Javascript. These two languages cover a lot of the ground important for a beginner to understand.
Be Versatile
You need to stay versatile and able to attack a range of coding problems. With coding, the problems can be as rewarding as the times you successfully pull a project off, so learn from your mistakes and welcome them as best you can.
Undergo Courses
To further your education, you shouldn’t limit yourself to practical experience and self-teaching programming courses. You can gain a lot of value from attending practical courses in areas that you might have a weakness in. As a coder, you are only as good as your weakest spot. These areas might include test case management tuition through a QASymphony scholarship, or studying how programming languages have evolved, adapted and persisted since their inception. Any knowledge is good knowledge, as they say.
Get Involved & Give Something Back
Become part of the software developing community. Browse IRC channels and help people out as you become more proficient. This free flow of advice and goodwill will only serve to make the field more attractive for new people to join, and therefore attract new talent to the fold. For all of the great information you can find online for free, it’s worth giving a little something back.
These five tips are sure to make you a wonderful software developer. Have fun!