The Long Road Ahead

Being new to anything means there is a lot of work ahead of you. When it’s what you want to do as a career, failure is not an option. There are many different ways to become better at something, although all methods are time intensive. The way to make the quickest progress toward becoming better at anything is to have the drive to become better at whatever that thing is. Becoming better at something that’s worth spending time on should be fun yet challenging.

Learning is Everything

As a Software Engineer you’ll need to learn every day. Nearly all of the developers I know today who are much older than I am think things were easier when they were younger because they really were. Now things are much more complicated in the world of software engineering and tech in general. Today the majority of languages are built upon other languages which can in turn be built upon yet another language making it difficult to understand the language at its root which can hinder productivity. Many people become stressed by all the learning required in keeping up in the field. Being overwhelmed by what there is to be accomplished must be resolved quickly to prevent burn out. The solution is simple, by learning what’s expected to be learned in the order that it all builds upon the last thing learned can reduce stress greatly. Some things won’t fit into this process of learning; you must determine where these outliers best fit and learn them as you go. This form of learning will make everything flow much smoother together and reduce the stress on you greatly.

There are countless languages in use today with all forms of usage from building & maintaining operating systems, mobile phone applications, websites and many more utilities. Once a person learns their first language the majority of others come more fluently and are typically more natural feeling to read from the beginning. It would be beneficial as a new developer to begin by simply picking a language and learning it. Learning Ruby or Python as a first language is good because their syntax is focused heavily on how people think rather than how the computer thinks which is how many other languages read such as Java.

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Above is how to run a very simple and extremely popular first program using Ruby's interactive shell (known as irb.) You'll notice how simple it is to read ruby this is because Ruby is built to be convenient for the developer as well as the computer in terms of compiling the script

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Cheap to Learn

It’s very easy and beneficial to learn a new language for little to no money in most situations. There are many ways of learning a new language such as books, articles, and even some podcasts. Another option would be to watch YouTube videos from YouTubers; such as: The New Boston who puts out videos daily to teach about languages along with other interesting topics, Mackenzie Child who puts out videos aimed at web design with Ruby on Rails, and Eli The Computer Guy whose videos teach more about career advise, networking, and servers. I’ve learned a lot from these three YouTubers over the years, they all do an amazing job at teaching people who are interested in software development. They all show extensive examples that make it easier for kinesthetic learners (like many engineers tend to be) to learn the concepts quicker and make them stick.

Stay Updated

In software development a point must be made to keep up to date with the the tools and languages in use. When the newest version of Ruby comes out (the most current version is 2.4.2) you should update and read about changes in the notes. Especially when the community is urging the people within it to be up to date. When a developer makes the choice to use tools of the past instead of the new tools he or she is no longer efficient in their job and therefore obsolete not unlike their tools.

Always make a point to touch up on languages learned in the past to prepare for software updates. This will keep a previously learned language fresh in mind; which will increase productivity. An example of this is, I learned Ruby a year prior to learning the Rails framework. When I finally picked up Rails I had to relearn a few aspects of Ruby to increase my proficiency with Rails. Doing this helped me understand Rails much better and allowed me to learn it much quicker.

Just do it!

Getting your start in software development as a career or hobby is far easier than people thing it is. It just takes time, dedication, and patience. Once you start developing your code in the beginning the rest will seem to flow naturally to the majority of people out there. It is very important to be persistent when running into a problem. This will allow you to solve problems you run into yourselves or find the solutions for issues on Stack Overflow. Developing Software is something that can be used in almost all career paths. Tools can be built to make tasks easier and quicker. Even if you don’t get paid to develop software it can be an extremely useful tool in life that also looks good on resumes.

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If you have any questions I am available often so feel free to leave a comment and I will get back to you as soon as I can.