How to improve your programming skills?
It doesn’t matter whether you are a beginner or a professional programmer; when it comes to improving a skill every advise should be taken into account. So I want to share some tips on how to improve your coding skills. Of course there are more tips there that can be useful as well, but I’m going to quickly write about the ones I usually follow.
This one is key; one of the most successful ways to improve coding is to spend time resolving some coding challenges. There are lots of cool websites that provides lots of programming exercises, but the ones I know and I’ve been using are:
I want to include two more since I am looking forward to try them, they seem to be a lot of fun.
Explain your code! It’s important to know what your code does but it is most to know how to explain effectively. You can take courses, read books (there are plenty of free books) or forums.
Share your knowledge (and ask questions!)
Don’t be shy. If you want to learn, you have to share your projects, chunks of your code, whatever. But try to get feedback from other developers, it doesn’t matter if they are your best friend or a complete stranger, whether they are beginners or pros. It’s important to embrace criticism as a good way to learn.
Start your own project from scratch
It’s time to get your hands dirty! I’m not saying that every developer should be working on a side project, but it is one of the greatest ways to improve. Not only do you start a real project that you can show in a portfolio to potential employers but challenge yourself on a daily basis as well.
It doesn’t have to be a revolutionary app or website, the most important aspect is learning as much about the target technologies.
Contribute to real projects
If you can’t come up with an idea, you can find open source projects. This way you can learn from others as well, and other of the most important skills: teamwork. Also it is a great method to read code from other developers.
