Getting started as a developer(Part 1)
Tags: Getting Started, Programming, Developer, Programmers Life, Newbi

Most times I get questions like “How do I get started as a developer”, “How do I start programming?”, “How do I survive in the tech world?”, “How did you find your way into tech?” and lots more.

Ladies and gents, if you have the above question running through your mind, then you are in the right place to get them answered.

Being a developer is the second toughest decision to make in the world; the first is waking up as early as 5 am to do chores (Just kidding but I’m serious). Taking that path where you have to sit in front of your PC giving instructions to your computer, makes taking the decision of being a programmer very hard, but guess what, the decision is the only hard stuff; programming isn’t. In this article, we would be taking a tour through getting started as a developer and what it entails.

There are three questions you should ask yourself before getting started.

How do I get in? How do I survive? How do I kill?

How do I get in?

How do i get in

I wrote my first program when I was 10years old; back then the teacher told us we use programming languages to create stuff like mobile application, desktop applications, OS etc, but the funny thing is that after all the mouth-watering praises he gave to programming, the only thing we learnt is how to use BASIC to write out some calculations which made me furious and curious. I was furious because I wasn’t really interested in just learning how to calculate stuff; I wanted to know how a computer works and what exactly was behind my snake Xenzia, bounce and football game. Guess what? That was all I needed.

Motivation

Push yourself because no one is going to do it for you

Motivation was all i needed. Some people ask questions like this, “What language do I need to learn to start programming?” What is the best language to learn as a beginner? Etc, and my answer to those questions is “I’m not in the best position to decide that”. Before hopping into programming, there was a reason you made that decision, there was something you saw that motivated you into taking this path. Everyone has a question or mystery they are trying to solve before getting started. So your questions should be “What language do I need to learn to create this beautiful website or application?”, “What language makes this robot move” and any related or focused question, don’t allow anyone to decide your path in tech (We would talk about reasons later).

Motivation is the reason or reasons for acting or behaving or moving in a particular way. The motivation I had back then was the secret behind my games, which made me focused because i had a goal in mind, in fact about some months ago, I remembered my childhood motivation and I wrote a snake Xenzia game using java so as to fulfill a part of my childhood goals and dream. Having a starting motivation makes you last forever, so I want you to think of the reason why you want to be here and focus on that reason.

Research

After being motivated, the next step is researching. Researching plays a great role in getting started as a developer. It gives you the idea of what you are getting started with. Research is a careful and detailed study into a specific problem, concern or issue.

Now that you have a goal to achieve and a reason to be a developer, then you have to know what your goal entails. There are thousands of ways to research but the easiest and fastest way to research is http://www.google.com. Just type that in your browser and enter a “getting started question”, for example, “How to get started with web developments” in Google’s search box and press the enter key. Voila, here you go with millions of answers at your fingertips, click on any enticing result and follow the guide.

Thanks you so much for reading, feel free to drop your questions, objections, additions, subtractions, multiplication etc. In the next part we would be talking about the remaining steps under the “How do I get in?” question, so hit the follow button to get notified when I post on my next article.

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/czarify

Github: https://github.com/Yczar