DEV Community: Jameskrob

Sharpen Your Programming Skills while in quarantine

Jameskrob — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 15:11:04 +0000

Chances are you have some level of expertise in programming and coding already, but you are stuck at home like the rest of America. Those who will come out ahead in the future are using this time to get ahead and sharpen their skills. There are a few things I wish I had known when was learning code for the first time that still inform how I learn it today. I hesitate to say “when I was learning programming” because “learning programming” is not a one-time endeavor. It is an ever-growing industry and process that is multi-faceted and complex. Here are a few resources to sharpen your skills and things to keep in mind to make it simpler for you.

There are many great resources available to get a quality programming education for free. If you have spent more than a few minutes programming than you know that the best way to do so is by experimenting and trying it out. But having a guide within a controlled environment/software can be exponentially helpful. Below is a list of free places to learn and become highly proficient at new programming languages.

• BitDegree
• Coursera
• Code Academy
• edX
• Udemy
• MIT Open Courseware
• Google Android Training
• Khan Academy
• Code Wars
• And many other options as well.

The only real constraint on learning a new programming language is time and ambition. The resources are plentiful and widely available to anyone. Many paid groups are doing discounted or free options because of the quarantine, look around and see what is best for you and get sharpening your skills.

There are a few things to remember when learning a new coding language to get the best results.
Switching tasks kills focus
Everyone learns at some point to at least partially deal with interruptions, it still hurts productivity. While it can be tiring it is ideal to just push through on some projects and finish them all in one sitting. It is advantageous to put on headphones, even if you aren’t listening to music. This signals to those around you that you are in the zone and you should not be interrupted. Get yourself a makeshift home office and have a separate space for your work and do the best to keep yourself focused. Many have had success with certain medication or focus promoting diffused oils can also help.

You NEED to know more than one or two languages

If you are one of these people who is good at JavaScript or C# and think you are good. You are sorely mistaken. Each new language is another tool in the tool belt. Imagine this, you are a contractor or a carpenter, but you only have a hammer and a screwdriver available to you. Chances are you aren’t getting that project done or it will be hacked together in a way that is not helpful to anyone or even really a good solution. Get comfortable and proficient in a number of languages because there just isn’t a substitute for having a versatile array of knowledge of how to accomplish tasks and solve problems and this is the perfect time to acquire that knowledge.

Looking up answers on StackOverflow is not bad

Many programmers have this hero complex where they need to be the one to solve the problem and it all needs to come from their mind and no one else’s. Popular movies and TV surrounding the space has propagated this idea. The hero goes into the basement, is up all night and emerges with the answer after having worked all night on an issue with no help. Looking up answers or asking others for help Is not a bad thing. The whole point of programming is to be able to accomplish something. Nowhere does it say that one person alone has to do it. If that desired thing is accomplished, then you have been successful. Resist the urge to think you can’t look up answers or ask for help. You are likely to just get stuck and just stay stuck.

Rise of Custom Programing for Companies

Jameskrob — Fri, 26 Jun 2020 23:28:18 +0000

While custom programming is not a new concept, it is still growing in popularity and necessity in the business world. Many companies have been building intranets and other custom solutions to their need for a long time and when one company does it, it doesn’t usually take long for other to catch on. Once one of them has taken advantage of an opportunity, the rest of the competitors in the industry quickly make the transition to keep up with the now evolving market. There are a few industries coming into this advancement and are moving fast.

Banking
Custom programming for banking has quickly become irreplaceable and necessary in the banking industry. Most of the money in America is no longer paper and coins. More than 90% percent of the money in America is now digital currency. Which means that if banking technology is not up to the top of its game, you are running into potential liabilities and dangers. The banking community knows this all too well and are doing everything they can to stay on top of it.

Product based businesses
Most any product-based business needs to keep careful track of their sku’s and inventory. There are many simple plug and play options now that simplify the situation significantly. Keeping in line which products are going where with each individual tracking number and set of specific instructions for each. This is an area just recently moving out of the dark ages of business. There are several stages, from being advertised, to being bought, fulfilled and shipped correctly.

Agriculture
This is an area that is getting a 21st century leap into the future as of late. Agriculture has historically been an archaic industry due to the fact that it can still be effective by someone in their yard. They have built many larger scale machines to do the work needed but they have recently begun investing in custom software which can track the needed water while still considering the rainfall in the area. Knowing how quickly the crop is growing exactly. Many agriculture conglomerates are wanting exact tracking so they can eliminate the guess work and working off of a “hunch” or “how it was last year”. Many are looking for very precise data that is generally hard to come by.

Industries with a Growing Dev/Programming Community

Jameskrob — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 19:50:46 +0000

Now I get it, that title is kind of misleading, because as we march into the future the need for more advance and more intuitive technology is becoming more pervasive in every industry. There are a few that have been lagging or have made slow improvements which are starting to invest in advancements which if you are paying attention, you will be able to be in at the ground floor.

E-Sports
This seems to be one of the more obvious answers because E-Sports is an emerging industry anyway that is only made possible by newer streaming and gaming advances anyway. The fact that this is the case means that they will be quickly looking to lean into very advanced programming and development especially in the form of big data, cloud computing, advance analytics and most all of that from mobile. The E-Sports industry is evolving more and more every day into the VR and even augmented reality spaces. Those with this knowledge even just a little bit will be in much higher demand as the industry as a whole is pushed forward.

Bookkeeping and Tax Preparation
Sure, software has been used in taxes and bookkeeping for decades. In many cases however the kind of software they are using is about as advanced as some modern calculators. It is really only good for basic calculations and storage. There is a very real push for AI to be integrated into the daily lives use of the finance and tax industry. AI has been able to handle many of the mundane tasks that highly qualified tax preparation professionals highly qualified tax preparation professionals are still spending hours doing. This allows many of them to spend their time as consultants and advisors and giving their true expertise for their clients.

Agriculture
An unexpected up and comer in these advancements is the agriculture industry. They are actively hiring programmers to build machine learning tools and practices to try and maximize crop yields and the profits for the farmers. They are also making strides in minimizing the usage of harmful but necessary pesticides. There has even been implementation of sensors, regressions, computer vision, satellite imagery, and algorithms. These have given insight into which land is the most fertile, optimal water levels, accurate weather prediction, ideal windows for planting and so much more

Research and Development
R&D is one of those areas which can most benefit from serious programming advances. Advanced programmers will be in high demand for innovative products labs, research groups and rising businesses. There are many organizations that are willing to pay to have a competitive edge in a newer market niche or need to reinvent themselves at the top of their industry to boost growth. It is only a matter of time before research and development teams everywhere will be leaning on programming to provide a breakthrough for the company. This is a little vaguer because almost any industry and even individual companies can have research and development departments looking for advancement, innovation, and breakthroughs.

Travel
Another unexpected industry that is quickly moving into a new generation of innovation is the world of travel. With the maturation of the International Air and Transport Association’s new distribution capabilities the whole sector is advancing. Particularly airlines, air consolidators all the way to travel agencies have an ever-growing need for new software development. Companies are will develop against the extensible-markup-language-based standard to transmit relevant, rich content for booking tools. This makes for greater transparency and product differentiation. If you think about it. The whole industry is filled with constantly moving parts and there are multiple data sources that are constantly communicating with each other and it needs to be fast and real time all the time.