5 Tackling the personal side of coding

 

This chapter covers

  • What it means to “learn how to learn”
  • The importance of side projects and why you should consider having at least one
  • How making mistakes is good for you
  • Why writing is great for developers

The previous chapters have covered what I think are the minimum requirements for starting your journey toward becoming a successful software developer. We’ve touched on everything you should worry about getting right and what you should focus on versus what you can ignore for the time being.

However, soon you’ll start noticing that software development starts taking over your life (if it hasn’t already). This happens to most of us. If you’re into development, you almost certainly love problem solving, and there is nothing worse than going home and leaving an unresolved problem.

As you’re eager to improve and learn more, you’ll start spending more and more time reading and watching tutorials, working on side projects, catching up on #TechTwitter (a popular hashtag on Twitter for discussing tech-related topics) or many of the other activities that can make you feel connected to your journey outside of work. And while these activities aren’t bad per se, they can definitely hurt you in the long run. Ironic, isn’t it? How can the thing you do to improve work against you? This chapter is dedicated to answering that question and to showing you ways of improving your skills in all important aspects.

5.1 How are you learning?

5.1.1 You’re not supposed to know everything

5.1.2 The internet is great, but so is a formal education

5.2 Side projects

5.2.1 The case for side projects

5.2.2 What’s wrong with side projects?

5.2.3 What about working on open source projects?

5.3 Asking your online friends for help

5.3.1 Making mistakes

5.3.2 Avoiding the naysayers