Starting a career or hobby in coding can feel intimidating. This field is ever-evolving and filled with both endless possibilities and endless challenges. Where do you start?
The following tips will serve as your compass, guiding you into this shiny new world and helping you to develop a successful career or accomplish your goals.
Let’s get started.
Start With the Basics
The first thing to do when you decide to learn to code is to pick a language to start with. There are so many out there, so it can be a little intimidating to know where to begin. The best approach is to do minimal research and then choose a language that you’re interested in or the best one for your purposes.
Once you choose the first language you will learn, you should learn the basics. The best way to do this is by building projects. Choose a few simple projects to work on and learn as you go along.
Practice Regularly
Whenever you’re learning something new, developing a habit will help you carve out time for it. A daily coding habit will help you learn consistently, make steady progress on projects, and accomplish your goals more quickly. Of course, if your schedule doesn’t allow for this, you can develop a weekly habit instead. Just make sure you’re setting aside time once or twice a week to learn and work on projects.
Break Down Projects and Problems
The projects you choose to work on can seem intimidating at first, especially when you’re just starting out. Breaking your projects down into small, manageable steps will help you make steady progress. Instead of looking at the project as a whole, focus on each step as you go.
You can take the same approach with problems that come up. Break it down into small steps you can take and before you know it, you’ll have moved past the roadblock and on to the next one.
Try to Solve Problems Yourself First, But Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help
Solving coding problems yourself is exhilarating and teaches you how to solve it next time. Experiment with your code and think outside of the box until you find the solution.
But if you’ve hit a wall, don’t struggle alone. There are so many resources out there for finding answers to problems. Start with Google, then ask questions in forums and online communities. Someone may be facing the same challenge or have come up with something you hadn’t thought of.
Study Others’ Code
Reading through others’ code can help you see what works and what doesn’t. It can also give you ideas for projects to try or things to implement in your code.
However, be careful here. Don’t copy and paste someone else’s code to use for yourself. Rather, learn what they did and why they did it. This can teach you new techniques and solutions. Use the lessons, not the specific code.
Learn to Debug and Fix Errors
Learning to fix things in your code is an important skill that you should learn early on. Recognize when something is not working (testing can help with this) and determine how to fix it.
This is useful whether you are building projects for yourself or looking to get hired as a developer. Any employer or client will want you to be able to fix your own code and turn in work that doesn’t need to be corrected by someone else. This is especially true when building websites and apps for clients: they expect it to not have problems after you’ve turned it over to them.
Always Learn New Things
Web development, coding, software development, and related fields are always growing, changing, and evolving. It’s important for you to evolve with them. There is always something new to learn: techniques, technologies, solutions for common problems, etc. Stay curious and you’ll always be up-to-date in your field.
Type Out Code Instead of Copying and Pasting
We’ve covered not taking others’ code, but now I want to talk about learning resources. Courses and tutorials are wonderful ways to get started and learn new things. And many of them run you through projects that you can build and add to your portfolio.
However, I would warn against simply copying and pasting this code. That might be the easy, quick way to build a portfolio, but it’s not the best way to learn. Type out the code yourself and really try to understand why that particular piece of code is there. Then you can tweak the project for yourself as you decide to add elements or take something out.
Solve Real-World Problems
Again, courses and tutorials are great for suggesting projects to add to your portfolio. But instead of the standard calculators and Google clones that are in everyone else’s portfolio, try to come up with something that solves a real problem. The additional benefit is that you might be able to turn this into a real product.
How do you come up with ideas for problems to solve? Look at the things that frustrate you or someone you know. Then take a look at the solutions that already exist. Is there room to improve these solutions? Is there something that you would add or get rid of? Build that ideal solution that you would use yourself.
Be More Social
You might think that coding is a solitary activity, but it doesn’t have to be. There are so many communities out there for coders and developers, from social media groups to forums and even in-person meetups. Find a few that you like and become involved in the group. This means sharing your successes and failures, talking about things you’ve learned, asking questions, and helping others.
Take Breaks
Staring at your code all day can lead you to become more tired and frustrated, especially when you hit that inevitable wall. Taking breaks will rest both your eyes and your mind, allowing you to return to your work refreshed. When I take a break from my work, I always find that new ideas occur to me that would not have if I continued to push through. Fresh eyes bring fresh perspective.
You can take a short break, like eating something or stretching. Or you can take a longer break to walk outside. Even taking a shower or going to sleep at the end of the day will help refresh you and give you new ideas to work on in the morning. Just remember to jot those ideas down!
Takeaway
There was a lot of information in this post, but all these tips can be pretty much summed up like this:
Be patient, be persistent, and be social.
Remember these three things and you’ll find yourself with a successful and enjoyable career or hobby in the world of coding.
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