Those aspiring to be exceptional programmers must be ready to spend a lot of time in the next few years doing programming daily.
Any experienced programmer knows that it is important to constantly search for ways to improve one’s skills.
Here a few tips to help you push programming skills to the next level.
1. Be an active learner, not a passive one
Instead of just taking online courses and classes on what one hopes to learn, start looking for possibilities for self-learning.
Say someone has no experience making games, google “how to programme a game in “A”, A being the programming language to be utilised.
Or if an unfamiliar error message pops up, try googling it, find a textbook, tutorial or online course to overcome any challenges.
Tutorials describing exactly what one wants to do can usually be found, or at least relevant articles that provide an overview and tips on how to compose more specific search queries.
There is no shame in doing research to learn new things. Everyone in the programming field, beginners, intermediates or experts, are always googling things and doing research to learn more.
2. Keep practising
Programming is similar to physical exercise, in that the main way to improve is through constant practice.
Start with simple coding and try programming a basic game, for example, “rock-paper-scissors” on the command line. Once done, look into more ambitious tasks and work through them.
Alternatively, look into various programming exercises to mix things up.
Programming is essentially about applied problem-solving and the best approach to learning how to problem-solve is to keep solving problems, regardless if they are big or small.
To find practice exercises and project ideas, try looking here:
- http://www.dreamincode.net
- https://githup.com
- https://robertheaton.com
- http://aosabook.org
- http://inventwithpython.com
3. Learn how to manage problems
When tackling large projects, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task. Instead of feeling intimidated, break up the problem into smaller sections until each issue becomes manageable.
For example, to develop a rock-paper-scissors game, break it down into several sub-problems: how to gather input from the users, how to make the programme pick a random option, how to distinguish who will be the winner, and how to repeat the entire sequence (to play the game multiple times).
To figure out each of these sub-problems, try segmenting them further. For example, identifying who has won could be segmented into determining a tie and determining who has won.
Here is a simple exercise to build problem-solving skills:
- Choose a daily activity, such as making a meal or something similar. It should not be too simple, but also not too complex.
- List each step involved in the activity from memory, at a time one is not engaged in it.
- The next time one is doing the activity, follow the steps in the notes. Try not to deviate from the notes and if it is necessary, note down the changes.
- Improve the steps until satisfied.
- Try this with different activities and the tasks will gradually become easier.
4. Learn how to be systematic
When coding, take a short break and plan out a rough idea by sketching some diagrams or taking notes of pseudocode. If one is thinking of changing something, think about why and what the new plan is.
Try to narrow down what causes the issues/bugs and record the results. If the hypothesis turns out to be incorrect, or if something that works that was not expected to, stop, pause and figure out why.
Consider monitoring all tests in a notebook if it helps to stay on track. A bug will always appear if something does not work as intended, trace it and pin down the issue or the incorrect assumptions.
This article first appeared in jobstore.com
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