The Young Nigerian Developer

Every known developer in this world had a starting point. I was reading a blog post on TechCrunch Onion website about the winners of Techcrunch Disrupt NY 2017 Hackathon and I noticed that the winners were not more than 17 years of age and worked on virtual reality. In my mind, I was trying to convince myself that it is because of their location that is why it is like that. But, Forget! That is no excuse. We can do much better too.

Now, as a young Nigerian developer coming across programming at 18 years or maybe you went to a good primary or secondary school and you were introduced to programming at 13 years, I am going to be writing about how to improve yourself to become better in your field of choice. Hope you learn from this!

Drill Yourself

It is important as a young developer to drill yourself by getting to familiarize yourself with basic concepts in computer science, computer programming and also, the basics of your choice programming language. Many young developers are all about building stuffs with technologies they have not really understood there basics.

Be Eager To Learn

Many developers are not relevant today because of poor learning habits and this affects a lot because you cannot expand beyond what you already know. The more you read, the more you become better and solve more issues with codes.

Get a Mentor

It is vital to have a mentor in programming. It helps you grow faster and escape some huddles they faced but run away from any mentor that won’t allow you go through stress in understanding some things as regard your field. If you don’t have anyone to mentor you, you can get expert mentors on Codementor Website

Community

Apart from learning at your own pace, it is important to join developers communities. If there are no developers communities in your location, it has been made easier today with Slack . You get to meet people on the same level with you and also, people ahead of you that can help when you come across certain issues. 

Open Source Projects

I have read several posts on guide for programming newbies and almost all emphasize on checking out open source projects. It is important to because it makes you familiar with coding standards of the programming language you are learning. 

Get Updated

In the technology world, things keep revolving and technologies keep getting better. You cannot be a better programmer without updating yourself on technologies you work with. Twitter, @devcenterco ,TechCrunch and Forbes Tech News Website can be helpful for this.

Competitions

Try as much as possible to participate in Hackerthons. They help you learn new things and widen your horizon. if it is possible, work with a team and try as much as possible to have people that are better than you so that you can become better. You can try out coding challenges on HackerRank , Project Euler and so on.

Keep Building

You can’t be the Lionel Messi or Ronaldo of your field, if you don’t work for it. Consistent practice matters a lot. Build useful packages that other developers can use. Work on uncommon projects and most importantly learn from every project you work on.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading. Promised it was going to be short!!! I believe you have gained from my thoughts.

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