10 tips for beginners at programming😀

#programming #discuss #codenewbie #beginners

In this blog, I have written some tips based on my experience from past 1 and half year trying to teach myself coding. Our views might be different. I had interest in Web Development from start, so It was easy to choose what tech stack I should choose. You might not be having a perfect domain interest yet, but that is totally fine, keep exploring!

These tips are particularly for programmers but might also help beginners of most of the fields. So lets get started.

📌 1. Not Understanding something is okay.

Its not very easy to learn new things, specially when we are a beginner. Half of what we see seems difficult and remaining half which we understand, we keep on forgetting.
But, Don't bog yourself down from this, If you are facing similar situation, you are not alone. Believe in yourself and keep trying to learn. Remember, every try you give, the things will seem easier for next try.
And if you are really trying hard and still not understanding something, maybe the next tip can help you.

📌 2. Grow One step at a time.

Programming is a vast land, open to be explored.
Be cautious, Don't try to consume it all at once, That is what naïve people do.
Start and finish one thing, and then go to next thing, follow good roadmaps, learn things one step at a time.
Don't pressure yourself into learning many things at once.
While doing this, don't just put yourself into one thing totally for a long time. if you are doing this already, then, next tip is for you.

📌 3. Don't stop exploring.

As I said earlier, Programming is a vast land, open to be explored, then why not explore it?
As a programmer you should try to explore languages that you think you wont be using ever.
By exploring, I mean, knowing what a particular language is used in, what are the benefits of using it, how is the syntax, etc.
This helps you to decide which language or tech stack you are really interested in.
And if you have already chosen a language or tech stack, and are on the path of learning it, then you will like the next tip.

📌 4. Books are not your enemies.

As a beginner, I was learning just from video tutorials, not anymore, why?
While video tutorials helps to keep the learning fun, many of those are just about how to do something and not how does something work inside the language.
Books tend to cover these special parts of a language, they explain if something is done, how the language is understanding and executing it. This helps in making us perfect on the fundamentals and working of a language.
But, what about libraries and frameworks?

📌 5. Documentation is your friend.

When it comes to libraries and frameworks, Official documentations will be your partner in code.
Most of these documentations are very nicely written and also contains many examples to start with.
They cover basic things like installation to advanced uses of the library or framework.
Okay, Now you have got the resources and you are ready to start learning, but don't leave yet, the next tip is a must.

📌 6. Learn in public.

One thing I did not do as a beginner was to learn in public.
It means that whatever you learn, do let others online know about it.
This helps you in connecting with people who are on same track as you. Also you might inspire someone else to learn.
This also helps in getting noticed by employers, and people who can guide you.
Great!, You have started learning, You are feeling motivated and are giving your best. But, not all days are similar, some days we feel tired, some days we feel bored of learning. The next tip is for those days.

📌 7. Consistency is the key.

Anyone can start learning something, start working on a project or start anything in general but ,the key to success is doing it regularly.
Doing your work every day will be tough in start, but you have to build mental strength to avoid silly excuses which are bad for your learning and growth and keep on working consistently.
But, Consistency doesn't mean going all out, as mentioned earlier, learn one step at a time, and taking breaks is not bad when necessary.
You can do this by building a time table, a to do list or taking up challenges like #100DaysOfCode.
Hurray! You have learnt a programming language or a library, what next?

📌 8. Build projects yourself.

Building projects is the most important part. It gives you a real experience of using what you have learnt.
Projects helps you to understand how much you know and what is missing.
Also, Projects are a good way to showcase your skills on resumes or portfolios.
Already building projects? lets go to next tip.

📌 9. Be part of communities and open source.

There are many awesome communities out there where amazing people like you learn from each other and grow together, try to join such communities, they will help you to learn and grow together.
One such awesome community I am part of is EddieHub. You can join us anytime on this discord channel.
While communities are all about learning and growing together, Open Source is about working together, to build open source tools and software for the world. Open Source gives you nice exposure to working with version control systems like git, working with a team, and how big projects look. In general, it gives you experience to work on projects used by others.
You have done a lot by now, Time to showcase your skills to people in industry? lets go to next and final tip for that.

📌 10. Hackathons make you better.

If you don't know about hackathons yet, you are missing a lot of fun.
Hackathons are events where people compete with each other to build projects and grab awesome prizes for it.
Hackathons are mostly of around 1-3 days where teams work on a project during the event.
This builds skills like coming up with good ideas, designing a project, distributing work with teammates, working together, and fixing problems quickly.
One important thing about hackathons is that, no body losses here, some gain prizes others gain experience.

These were my opinions based on my experience.😋 This was my first blog, Your feedback is most welcome.😊 I hope this blog helps you in your journey towards a programmer.

❤️ Thank you for reading ❤️

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