Newbie dev: doing Beyond Tutorials
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more people are staying at home. On the positive side, it makes for a good time to learn new skills. Here is one article that aims to help anyone getting to tech (coding) as you learn those new languages and tools.
This post is mostly based on my talk at the Andela Learning Community ALC 4.0 final meetup in Benue State, Nigeria. You can find my slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1KmiLzamF82hoTkX0mMtc6KBtNdexHJJpo1L7vUdbpuU/edit?usp=sharing
In the past 3 years, I have been working as a developer and teacher. I have worked with newbie devs in the process. One common thing I have noticed is that some newbie devs get stuck on a nearly infinite loop of consuming learning resources (tutorials). As a self-taught developer, I transitioned from doing tutorials full-time to coding a project in the following mini-stories (sub-sections).
Story 1: Building an Online Forum
Once upon a time, I wanted to be the next Mark Zuckerberg (I still want that), and that dream was what led me to learn PHP. After learning PHP and using pre-made forum scripts like Simple Machine Forum (SMF) and not getting the kind of experience I wanted for my users I decided to build my own forum script. I started a project which I code-named “Rebirth Forum”.
About 80% of everything I know about PHP and web development was from building Rebirth Forum. I pushed the product into production and got over 1000 users to sign-up. Bug reports from my users and attacks from wanna-be hackers even led me to learn more about PHP and the web eco-system.
Story 2: Building my Second Android App
Android development is exciting. In 2017, I decided to build a small utility app for android. The project had features that require a database (SQLite) and standard android UI components like ListViews/RecyclerViews. After publishing to Play store, just like Rebirth forum, I got feedback and bug reports from users. Addressing the issues pointed out by users helped me to improve the app and even learn more about Android OS.
Android SDKs change so fast, and another positive thing the app is doing for me is that it provides me with an avenue to implement the lastest and best practices. I heard about ROOM and MVVM at DevFest ’17, I read the official documentation and migrated my app to MVVM architecture.
Common thing
I will be stopping at just two stories to avoid boring you. But here is the main message in both stories. I built an app that is not perfect because of my ability at the time I started the project. As I work hard to make the project better, I learn new things and somehow become a better developer too.
Go beyond Tutorials
Build an app, don’t copy and paste code from some tutorial app or modify one and publish. Think of a problem, something not too fancy to implement so you don’t get overwhelmed.
Release Version 1 or some public beta, get feedback and try to learn what is required to make the app better. Besides getting better at coding it will also provide you with a portfolio to secure your first job or freelance gig.
I will stop here for now and good luck with your tech journey. This post is based on my experience and is just my opinion. What worked for me might not work for everyone. Feel free to follow me on twitter via @ea_pius for a chat.