For products & services from different businesses, we always look at the customer’s or business’ perspective but we sometimes fail to acknowledge the brilliant minds that have made things better and more convenient through their continuous efforts in adding codes and simplifying systems or programs so that everyone gets live a better and more comfortable life. 

It’s time to turn the spotlight on to the developers & programmers and how they can be a better version of themselves by noting these tips from the experts. As a software or a web developer, coding can be improved through the use of tools. Although it's true that tools may help with the process, it’s the person behind the code that makes the code what it is, and this is reflected in the final product. 

As an individual, your developer and programming skills may be enhanced through self-learning and lots of other methods. In this article, we’ll take the time to learn straight from the experts on ways to help our developers harness & improve their skills: 

1. Practice More & Don’t be Afraid to Make Mistakes

No matter what it takes, you must keep on practicing. The more you code, the better you become and the more you make mistakes. Because the more you code, the more you will realize your mistakes in error handling, designing, threading, etc. You will learn from these mistakes and the more you practice your craft, the better you will get. You must also create your schedule or structure to ensure that you learn effectively and ensure that your spend your time practicing different things such as a different coding language. 

2. Teaching One’s Self from Website and Books

Choosing to improve your abilities would require you to teach yourself more skills, specifically by concentrating on the areas where you lack experience in. You can start by reading through any technical, educational material available from a variety of sources such as Google, have a website for developers that contain a lot of information & high-quality guide from best practices written by people with experience in various languages. Code academy, Code.org, W3 Schools, and HTML5 Rocks are also a good place to start learning, depending on what you’re looking for. 

Despite how old fashion books may seem, it is a good idea to build up a good reading list of technical books that are written by authors with years of coding experience. Head First Java, Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML and Head First HTML5 and others in the “Head First” series are good places to start if you’re a newbie. Code Complete is highly recommended for developers which cover a lot of material related to software construction, also ‘Java, how to program‘ by deitel is also another amazing source. 

3. Reflection

It’s very important to reflect on your code as every time you fix a bug in your code you need to look back and see how you can avoid creating this error/bug in the first place, as well as how to avoid it in the future. Good programming principles are a plus in having your practice for improving yourself. Code craft: The Practice of writing excellent code is a highly recommended book. There are also informal rules that are followed which are known as ‘best coding practices‘. Reflection also helps fix any bad habits and adopt new habits which are good for you. 

4. Take time to Learn From Other Programmers

Work on a variety of different types of projects & use them as a method of learning, doing things that you’re uncomfortable with is good. Push yourself outside your comfort zone & work with other programmers on tasks you are unfamiliar with, so you’ll pick up new skills. 

You may also try pair programming with other programmers or developers to improve the quality of the code and help you work better as a team member.  Ask questions if you are unsure on how to do something & if you’re on a team, there are at least a few senior programmers or developers that you can learn from. 

5. Work on Open Source code

Working on open source projects from places like Source Forge and GitHub is often a great way of improving your skills and spending time immersed in the code is a quick way to improve your developer and programming skill set. Also, try to read and understand other people’s code in open source projects, then write a documentation for the code you wrote or on open source code to help you to understand your own code better and put you in the shoes of other people. 

6. Master the programming language(s) that you use or be the Jack of all trade & master of none

There are two options which both work for developers and programmer, these are either to focus on mastering one specific programming language such as Java and be the very best at this language. However, based on the ever dynamic technology and programming standards, it would be best to be multi-skilled in this field. It’s essential to learn more than one language and be a ‘jack of all trades but ensure that you open your eyes to how each language is unique. 

7. Create a Unit Test

Creating a unit test will help you to complement your thinking and coding process, that will, in turn, lead you to be better at designing codes. By writing a Unit Test, finding better names, abstraction, interfaced and abstract classes, these will all help improve your code quality. 

8. Do a Code Review Then Send Your Code Review for Others to Critic

You can become a good programmer and developer if you do a code review. Through reviews, you can improve your code sense and get feedback from others. At the same time, you’re also helping others to improve themselves. Often, the case for developers in working on codes for such a long time, you won't notice your own mistakes and only a fresh pair of eyes can spot it. When having your code reviewed, make sure to ask for a more detailed review on areas that you’re not too confident on. 

9. And the most important thing is to -- Talk to others and Have fun

It’s often quite easy to get detached from others when developing or programming. It’s a good practice to talk about codes, share and do white board sessions to brainstorm. Discuss, listen and hang out with fellow developers and programmers or participate in events like JavaOne, Devfest, Devoxx. Most of all, don't forget to have fun! 

There are more ways on how to be a better developer and programmer. Let us know your thoughts by leaving us a comment below or checking out our site at foneapi.com for more interesting facts and insights on how to improve your codes & have fun by doing so.