Programming - general advice

progcomputeach

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Programming - general advice

July 30, 2010, 03:49:05 AM

I thought it would be good to write down a list of things you can do to improve your programming and job prospects when you have learned what you need to. To get the ball rolling:

a. learn the syntax of the language(and a Framework if there is one. E. g. . NET)
b. improve your coding by practising lots- the more you do the more you will reduce the number of errors you make. Having written lots of code you will remember what works and what does not
c. improve your problem solving-you will often have to work on this before writing your program
d. create a portfolio of programs which you can present to potential employers-perhaps upload them to a website
e. Put yourself in the shoes of the person using your program-what would you like to see, how would you like to use the program? This will help you (as a programmer) make the program easier to use.
f. Take some exams :-)

Suggestions, additions and comments are most welcome.

Abhi

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Re: Programming - general advice

July 30, 2010, 04:58:52 AM

Good one friend. Thank you for posting.

I would like to add one point:
Do not make a habit of copy pasting the ready made code, instead try writing your own. You will learn a lot from this.

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progcomputeach

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Re: Programming - general advice

July 30, 2010, 05:47:49 AM

I agree with that. Some programmers do copy and paste code from different sites, play with it and then get it to work. If you can write your own code in the first place then you get better at it-it continually improves you. . . .

You have to approach programming in the right way. Its all very well cutting and pasting the code as long as you understand what it does. If you dont know what the code does(the code which you are cutting and pasting) then how do you know if it works? It is far better to read code samples and understand what they do. Importantly, read subject areas and understand what they do.

Lets imagine you want to encrypt a file in . NET and you didnt know what encryption did. Would you just copy the code from a site?

Nobody knows the entire . NET Framework so you would use the MSDN and search for encryption discussions and code samples, understand what it does and then write it. Thats why you are a programmer. . .

When you do this then a senior programmer could ask you and you could happily explain. If you approach programming this way then this will help you in your task which might be a bit more advanced. . .

Great site and its nice to talk programming with other people. I teach C#,VB, Java and I know SQL as well so a nice set of skills.

Quote from: Admin link=topic=2154. msg8807#msg8807 date=1280491132

Good one friend. Thank you for posting.

I would like to add one point:
Do not make a habit of copy pasting the ready made code, instead try writing your own. You will learn a lot from this.

Abhi

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Re: Programming - general advice

July 30, 2010, 08:50:20 AM

One more I will add to the list:

Use proper naming conventions for the variables and methods that you are declaring.

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progcomputeach

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Re: Programming - general advice

July 30, 2010, 08:51:41 AM

Oh of course, what is sometimes called the "Hungarian notation" for representing strings, integers etc. Yes that's a good one!

Quote from: Admin link=topic=2154. msg8825#msg8825 date=1280505020

One more I will add to the list:

Use proper naming conventions for the variables and methods that you are declaring.

EDIT: Corrected some typo mistakes

« Last Edit: July 30, 2010, 08:55:42 AM by Admin »

polas

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Re: Programming - general advice

August 01, 2010, 05:57:31 AM

Some good ones, I will add some too:

1) Get used to code reuse. There is no point reinventing the wheel, it just takes extra time (and costs your company lots of money unnescesarilly.) So write your code such that it can be easily reused (either by yourself within your project or somebody else.)

2) Learn design patterns - these are actually really boring but get to know a few which you use regularly as this makes it easier to apply to a specific problem (and they are favoured questions at interviews!)

3) Syntax is a necessary evil of semantics. Knowing the syntax of many languages is often unimportant. However, understanding the semantics (the meaning) is what matters. For instance in two different languages the syntax of loops or conditionals may be very different but they follow the same meaning (semantics.) If you understand this meaning then using the syntax is often elementry.

4) Comment your code - another commonly missed out step, but it makes it so much easier to go back to in the future.

5) Almost as important as the compiler are other development tools such as debuggers, IDEs etc... By learning how to use the likes of GDB (debugger) and Eclipse (IDE) you will save yourself so much time in the long run. Someone without the basic grasp of these isn't developing code properly.

6) Get some qualifications. Irrelevant of how "good" you are, no qualifications often means no job. So get a good degree (or 2) in Computer Science.

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Re: Programming - general advice

June 28, 2011, 06:01:10 AM

the general advice in programming: just make sure that your doing things logically and according to the rules..

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john14317

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Re: Programming - general advice

June 28, 2011, 06:05:22 AM

If your goal is to better understand the underlying machine, then I
would definitely start with c++, as it's the closest to the machine
(among reasonably common, modern, high-level languages). It is
(nearly) a superset of c, and, in general, a more expressive language
than c, so I would recommend it over c. The lower-level constructs
of c are closer to the machine than the higher-level constructs offered
by c++ (and preferred stylistically in modern c++), but these c-style
constructs are available to you in c++ (as it is a near superset of c).