DEV Community

Odoo Engineer
Odoo Engineer

Posted on

Dear Beginner Devs: Don’t Repeat These 5 Mistakes 🚨

👋 Hey DEV community!

When I was a beginner developer, I made some mistakes that cost me way too much time.
You don’t need to repeat them — so here are my top 5 (and what I learned).


1️⃣ Ignoring Documentation 📚

I thought docs were boring and skipped them.
👉 Instead, I relied on blog posts and tutorials.

Lesson: Docs are usually the most accurate and fastest way to learn. Trust them!


2️⃣ Over-Engineering Side Projects ⚙️

I wanted every small app to have “enterprise-level” structure: microservices, CI/CD, 100% tests…
👉 Guess what? Most projects never got finished.

Lesson: Done > Perfect. Build something small, make it work, then improve it.


3️⃣ Copy-Pasting Without Understanding 🔍

StackOverflow answers worked… until they didn’t. Debugging code I didn’t understand was painful.

Lesson: If you paste code, stop for 2 mins and ask: Do I know what this line does?


4️⃣ Avoiding Asking for Help 🙈

I thought asking questions would make me look “junior.”
👉 So I wasted hours (sometimes days) trying to solve things alone.

Lesson: Asking good questions is a skill, not a weakness. Communities (like this one!) exist to help.


5️⃣ Treating Git Like Dropbox 🗂️

My first commits looked like this:

git add .
git commit -m "stuff"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

👉 Reverting mistakes was a nightmare.

Lesson: Learn branching, rebasing, and clean commit messages early — future you will thank you.


🚀 Final Thoughts

Every dev makes mistakes — these just happened to be mine. The good news? They’re also the fastest ways to grow.


👉 Now I’m curious:
What was YOUR biggest beginner mistake as a developer?
Drop it in the comments — let’s help the next generation avoid them!

✨ Thanks for reading my first DEV post — excited to learn, share, and grow with this community.

Top comments (0)