Everyone wants to know about it.
Some get it, some don't.
I for one always knew that I was going to be a computer programmer.
Ever since my school days, I have wondered how those amazing games (EA: Need for Speed series, etc.) worked in the background. I thought about graphics that went into them, learnt about game development, and web development.
I just had the highest level of curiosity for cool things. I always loved reverse engineering stuff, taking things apart and figuring out step by step how to put it back together. Such interest has propelled me to reverse engineer many real-world objects, and at a novice level many games, websites and mobile apps. It is just so interesting to figure something out and generate new ideas from that newfound theory.
Hence, I spent most of my days doing things like web development, gaming, and coding. I picked up languages one by one. Now I know so many I cannot even keep track of half of what I know and what I remember. But just know one thing, one must always know what kind of programming languages he can use to get the required results.
Now, this comes with practice. However, you must continue to try to reverse engineer and learn new things every day. Only then can you catch up with the current trends right?
There are few approaches I would like to suggest people who wish to be good developers:
- Always write logically and syntactically correct code. i.e. Don't waste time on silly things like syntax and logic.
- Code formatting and documentation is an indirect marketable skill. Clear, readable, understandable code is the dream of many Tech team leads. When you write code, be sure to make it readable and formatted well. Always include very meaningful variable names, supporting documentation, using comments, etc. This helps anyone who reads your code to understand exactly what is happening and they can pick up where you left off, as it is very unlikely you will work single-handedly on any project.
- Try to understand the underlying differences in approaches while using various different languages.
- When writing code, keep in mind:
- Keep unnecessary steps to a minimum,
- Iteratively make your algorithm better,
- Only generate it into production code when the algorithm seems to be at its best,
- Try to come back after a while to check on the algorithm once more. Usually, you'll find incredibly stupid/silly things that can be fixed or updated. Hence, point 1.
- Keep the number of lines of code to a minimum, per function. A function/method should only perform one task. Example: function makePizza() needn't worry about delivering it.
- Look into coding challenges online on the tens of hundreds of platforms such as HackerRank, GeeksForGeeks, etc. Solve one a day at the least.
- Work on different IDEs, online and offline.
- Try to find the balance between designing and developing.
- You are bound to fail, just don't give up. Programs will work only at the last hour before deadlines. Such is many people's fate.
I have spent hours and hours on a single step or single problem, only to realize next day what I missed. It can happen to anyone. You could also find it difficult to read and understand even standard code or others' code.
Tricks:
- Learn & develop in multiple languages simultaneously. It gives a better level of control over your emotions as a programmer.
- Write the same program in different languages.
- Decide before you begin exactly what your stack is going to be. (see below for stacks)
- Be willing to spend the rest of your life in front of a computer in the worst case. Further, get ready to spend more than 12-14 hrs a day, <coding>
- Choose the latest stack, and do company specific stack building.
Stacks:
- Stacks are groups of technologies/libraries or frameworks, which are used to build a specific application.
- There are many ways to categorize them. I will categorize them broadly using:
- Ease of Learning
- MEAN, python Django, .NET+web, JAVA(core/enterprise)
- Productivity
- Racket, Scheme, Lisp, - Almost ready for anything
- Python - numpy, scipy, sklearn, serial, pygame etc.
- C/C++ - Windows, Linux, Systems Programming, OpenGL, GameDev
- JAVA - CORE/EE Powerful enough to run anywhere, anything.
- Type of application
- Web: Frontend +PHP, NodeJs, Ruby, etc. Where Frontend can be AngularJs, ReactJs, etc.
- Mobile: AndroidSDK, IOS_Swift, etc, React-native, IconicFramework/Cordova, AngularJS etc.
- Dekstop: C/C++, JAVA, python, etc.
Computer Architecture/How it works basics (can skip):
- Fact - Computers are dumb until made smarter by equipping them with Human-based intelligence.
- Computers can only understand 0/1, Binary.
- Steps for programs to run on the CPU:
- A program is written in a high-level language
- Compile means it is converted to assembly and optimized as best as can to run faster.
- The compiled program can then be converted further to binary in the linking step.
- Further optimizations are done.
- Finally, the program is assigned a position in the CPU running queue.
- Next?
- The CPU contains certain architecture to make the program have its own space and allow it to work from there.
- This architecture is called the Stack. The CPU consists of closely bound elements such as the Stack, Registers, and Cache.
- The Main memory is the next fastest. The Secondary memory, (DISK) is the slowest. hence, one should try to load chunks of working data into the main memory or the cache to have the fastest processing speed.
- So basically, when the assembly program arrives, the CPU assigns certain stack space for each such program. The variables that are found to be alive are sorted into registers when they appear in the code. These registers are the only ones who can operate on data. We all know that most of the worlds most complex problems can be reduced to simple mathematical equations. This is one of the main reasons that the CPU is hooked up to the ALU- Arithmetic and Logic Unit. There is a whole book on this topic Computer Architecture, but mainly, each program becomes a function for the CPU. Most functions are reduced to math or logic operations completed by ALU. If there is a store/read command, then the memory is accessed and the registers are updated.
- This process of CPU is so repeated in every aspect of programming. If we have large data, we divide and conquer. If we need fast processing, we try to place most of the required files into the same working directory (example: external js libs vs local js lib files downloaded ahead of time)
- Now, you don't need to get into any of this. From programmers standpoint always remember one thing. Answer these questions:
- What's the output?
- What's the input?
- Can I code it?
- What do I need?
- What do I have?
- Where do I get other dependencies? Can I get them?
- Choose the language
