DEV Community

Cover image for How to Think Like A Programmer?
dev.to staff for The DEV Team

Posted on

How to Think Like A Programmer?

How do you develop a programmer's mindset? What role does regular practice and experimentation play? And how do you stay motivated to consistently improve your problem-solving skills in coding?


Follow the DEVteam for more discussions and online camaraderie!

Top comments (7)

Collapse
 
ssukhpinder profile image
Sukhpinder Singh

To develop a programmer's mindset, you start by whispering sweet nothings to your computer every night, promising to understand its complex nature and debug its darkest fears.

Jokes apart, I think its regular practice and experimentation play the role of daily sessions with your code, where you understand the problems, try to understand its perspective, and gently guide it towards becoming a better version of itself.

Collapse
 
mlaposta profile image
Michael La Posta

Agreed, and I think to add to that, not only experimentation but the inevitable smashing of one's head on the desk when things go wrong, and the ensuing hoards of searches and "try this and that" to fix what isn't working.

Collapse
 
fyodorio profile image
Fyodor

You just need to be able to recursively dig deeper into any problem "tree" (or rather "root"?), metaphorical or real, without loosing the "parent" context(s) out of sight, easy peasy.

Languages and tools don't matter, you can dig with bare palms or with a sharp spade, it all comes up to the resulting solution timing...

Motivation... Well, rewarding findings, shiny spades, strong hands, whatnot...

Collapse
 
keep_calm_and_code_on profile image
Alex Lau

There are 2 big things that come to mind for me:

  1. Being able to break a large problem into smaller, more manageable chunks. imo, this is so important because the code you write mimics how you think about a problem. If you think about it in smaller chunks, your code is likely to follow with isolated concerns and logical encapsulations.

  2. Weighing the tradeoffs to a problem. As programmers we are constantly having to juggle between the "right" level of scope for a technical solution.

Collapse
 
mince profile image
Mince

A salesman should think in the perspective of the customer
A teacher should think in the perspective of the student
A director should think in the perspective of the audience
Maybe, A programmer should think in the perspective of the computer πŸ€”

Collapse
 
pedrosmasson profile image
Pedro Masson • Edited

How do you develop a programmer's mindset? -> improve your logic by building your own projects and collaborate in open source projects

And how do you stay motivated to consistently improve your problem-solving skills in coding? -> you simply cannot stay consistently motivated, there will be moments where you'll not be at your 100% and that's FINE. just don't give up when ur not at your best form.

Collapse
 
ezekiel_77 profile image
Ezekiel

Practice thinking like a developer.