Dear senior and intermediate level developers, What are some the things you wish you had done, known or adhered to that would have made your journey easier or learning faster. Share so someone else can learn.
Back when I learned to code at school in 2008 or 2009, I put a lot of energy into coding every single day. I felt like I was on top of the world. From today's point of view, I guess that was exactly what I needed at the time. Learning and improving are results of training, putting energy into something, and making mistakes. I don't think I would do it differently if I had the chance to re-do the learning as a pupil, and it's what I recommend to my mentees today.
There may, however, be some regret. While I think Pascal and Delphi are great languages, I wish I had abandoned them earlier, and instead put more energy into C++. I wish I had not experienced C++ through the Embarcadero RAD Studio with its GUI editor and libraries, but instead coded more console applications. Putting effort into learning VCL and FireMonkey does not help me a whole lot today, after all. However, it may as well be one of the dead ends I had to run into then in order to become the developer I am today.
What I learned from it: Tackle options earlier. Broaden my horizon, check out alternatives, compare the tools and drop things I don't need anymore. Delphi did not have a big community back then, and they had problems keeping up with modern developments. The community shrank, and I saw it, but I did not want to go learn something else (maybe because I was too lazy). Today, I use Rust and want to go web-dev for the GUI, if I really need a native application, though Web Apps rule most of the time.
I wish I would have
Linda Ikechukwu Great question!
Back in 2012/2012 when I was learning new things, I wrote a lot of articles for companies like SitePoint. I wish I would have equally contributed to open source projects. If you are just starting to code, you can learn a lot by understanding open source projects and trying to fix their open issues.
Linda Ikechukwu
Frontend Enginner, turned Technical Writer
For me. I wish I had some sort of laid out structure for learning. I started learning to code a year ago and if only I had taken time to define my goals and path, I wouldn't have wasted so much time learning so many unnecessary things.