Recently I’ve read a thread that was going on about how platforms need to do a better job and limit developers to what they can do or in some cases, what they can install. That thread led to another one talking about developer career paths and how they should go about learning things when someone is a new developer with no prior knowledge.
I was bummed how many articles and forum threads there are giving absolutely wrong advice all around.
Platforms should limit developers?!
When I read this, my first thought was: “this is just ludicrous”. Limiting was never a good idea. If anything, educate people, so that they can ship better products. Especially with a huge influx of developers or as I sometimes call some “wanna be developers”. I get it, there is a huge demand, and some get attracted by so many success stories. How being a developer is like the most convenient job on the planet. But many get hit in the face, since being a developer is more than writing in a text editor or watching a youtube video. And yes, news flash, watching a 10min crash course on youtube doesn’t make you a developer just yet. Same as other professions it takes time to learn.
So there is no surprise that many shipped products are slow and wonky, but that is not the fault of a platform but more of bad developers.
The second thread is kind of connected to the above since many suggest completely new developers to jump straight into frameworks. Which is simply a BAD idea. As the title says, taking shortcuts will bite you in the end. What I’m always suggesting is to start at the beginning and learn the fundamentals. Having strong fundamentals will guide you through your career and make you feel really comfortable and learning a framework or completely new languages will just be another syntax and you will be able to quickly transition.
How do I start learning as a new developer?
It is actually quite simple. Start with the basics and keep it simple. There is no problem if you prefer watching a video over reading a book or vice versa. But don’t just blindly follow the tutorial and rewrite code. Take a stop, play around and edit the code and understand how it works.
Write down notes if you need to. Plan things out, trust me, it makes things easier if you have a plan of what to do. One advice I usually give to newer developers is “write pseudo code”. It makes life so much easier when you have every step written down.
But how to actually start if you have no prior experience? -Simple, start from the absolute start and learn the basics like:
- variables
- loops
- data structures
Always remember to keep it simple and don’t over engineer your code until you have to. Write clean and readable code. Always try to look at your code and think if you will quickly pick it up if you come back after a month, a year or even a few years. Of course a larger code bases you have documentation for that, but still no reason to make your code a hot mess.
Take your time and think about how you can make your code better.
Software engineering is a grind and there is no surprise why there is such a low percent of developers that actually make it. It is a long grind and takes lots of discipline and dedication. And never think that you are done, you will never know everything, you will be constantly learning. So there is also a mindset that plays a big role. You need a big amount of motivation and passion to do it.
Do yourself a favour and think it through and above all take your time and learn thing properly. Trust me, taking shortcuts will bite you in the end!
What are your thoughts on developers taking shortcuts?
