Advice for developers

I asked a question on Twitter earlier this week, encouraging everyone to share their one piece of advice they would give to new developers:

What's one piece of advice you would give to junior developers just beginning on their coding journey? Mine would be to focus on building real, practical projects - as that's where the actual learning happens 🔥

​There's lots of great advice in there, even for experienced developers, so I encourage reading it entirely. But here's a few of my favourites with some additional thoughts:

  1. Learn fundamentals, then create projects. This one is very inline with what I preach myself. Whatever the fundamentals for your chosen tech area, focus on those and learn them well. And the best way to truly integrate the learnings in your brain, is to build lots of real-world projects.
  2. Keep learning. Keep sharing. Be curious. Be humble. Another amazing piece of advice. Coding is a continuous journey, and you're never done learning to code. By keeping an open mind and constantly exploring new and better ways, you'll set yourself up for success. Share your struggles along the way to inspire and help others too.
  3. Learn to read documentation. I like this one because it's not the traditional advice we give to new developers, despite being absolutely crucial. Many frameworks have detailed documentation covering the ins-and-outs of the framework, and some even have in-depth tutorials on getting started using it. Learning what to look for and how to follow documentation is a seriously underrated skill. Don't neglect it!

Again, these were just a few of my favourite tips, but I seriously recommend reading the whole thread regardless of your experience level:

​Check out the thread​