My advice to an entry-level programmer would be, to stick with the following 3-P strategy which I have formulated and it has really helped me in my career.
- Perseverance
- Practice
- Project work
Perseverance
"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many races one after another." - Walter Elliot
At the beginning, coding always seems like a burden to most of the learners who just see the never ending list of topics involved and feel like quitting at the sight of a seemingly unsolvable error or a tough coding challenge. This not only applies to programming but our real life situations as well. We must not forget that we are bigger than the temporary problems we might be facing and things do get resolved through continuous effort and perseverance. So have faith in yourself, take help from your peers where you need it and keep the hustle going. You got this!Practice
"Every season is not harvest. There are seasons of watering, seasons of planting, seasons of pulling up weeds, and fertilizing the ground." - Joel Osteen
Yep no alternative to the good ol' practice, practice practice till you get it right! Programming is all about getting your hands dirty and keep writing code till you get a deep hold on the concepts and get a head start in linking various concepts to bring up reliable solutions. IT does take a lot of time and effort in the beginning but once you see the skills sharpening up, programming just feels like a breeze. Practicing your coding skills will really get the concepts deep in your memory to the point you will feel an adrenaline rush coming up with solutions to business challenges and automating the humdrum tasks we do on a daily basis.Project work
“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Just like no one believes a photographer is good until and unless he's got a good portfolio to show off his work, same goes for programmers. Always keep a project based approach in mind from the beginning and keep building up small projects which could come handy for automating manual tasks just for fun. This really keeps you engaged form the start and brings up confidence in you to share your journey with others at a later stage about the challenges you faced and how you overcame them. Working on projects along your programming journey will help you create a profile side-by-side to showcase your talent and for people to see how skilled you are at programming.'All 3 things really help in bringing up the best in you for sure. I hope this advice really helps the budding programmers in their journey to make the most of it.I will end this post with a quote from Henry David Thoreau.
"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it!"
Pavneet Singh