Coding Roadmap and Practices : Journey and Mistakes

Coding is a kind of skill which is in high demand these days. In this world which is constantly growing technologically in a rapid phase, one must be able to code in computers. There are many programming languages to start and it is very important in logic building skills. In nowadays, it is recommended that even children should learn computer programming in their elementary standards in school.

Code is necessary for kids too..

In this article, I will share my part of journey as a computer programmer as well the mistakes to avoid while being on this track of learning.

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Well, to be honest I was not so confident about what stream to choose. It can be considered as my first mistake as one must be able to confirm before the age of 15 what to learn. As many people suggested me learn C Language in early age, I ignored the advice that time.

Later I finalized to pursue Diploma in Computer Engineering without a proper prior knowledge about coding. Many people just consider that studying computers is just tapping keys and management but it is way above that. I started learning C Language, followed by C++ and Java. But the major mistake I made during that period is “I took Data Structures lightly!”.

One should never ignore this part as it immensely helps in logic building skills. To anyone reading this, please never skip Data Structures and their implementation.

Why Data Structures are Important?

In later stages, I learnt Java and was feeling more comfortable with it. I intended to learn from the very beginning and never skipped a session. Additionally, I took up some personal projects to help me develop my coding skills.

Recommendations:

1. Take up interest. Without it, learning is worthless.
2. Practice regularly. Don’t even dare to skip a single day.
3. Help people in their coding activity/project. Explaining helps you learn much more faster.
4. Take up coding challenges on HackerRank, HackerEarth, etc. This helps us at a very high extent.
5. Have a problem solving attitude. “I CAN” is very important to excel.

Mistakes:

1. Avoid laziness. Regular practice is important.
2. Never skip a single topic. Each and everything is important.
3. Never consider programming easy. It is easy for those who are veterans in the field.

Hope these parameters are helpful to understand why to practice coding at a very early age. The advices and the criteria in this article are regarding to point of view of writer.

Happy Coding!!