We've all watched movies where they fix a programming bug like it's a piece of cake. Guess what? it's a lie. If you are a beginner or someone who wants to start a career as a software developer you need to know that programming is not easy and never let anyone tell you otherwise. Discussions among software developers usually involve two lovely words, COPY and PASTE. Its true, programming involves a lot of copying and pasting, and having the power to copy and paste code as well as making it work is like enjoying a view from a mountain top. However to enjoy the view you have to climb the mountain first which is the difficult part and the secret in this article.

There are many ways of mastering programming but here are some of the ways that I think are very helpful in becoming a better software developer.

Be enthusiastic

Breath programming, speak about programming, write about programming, and live a programming life. To become a better programmer you have to enjoy programming, you need to be strongly interested and make it part of your life. Most great developers have no social life but however, you need to know your limits and have other social activities to help you clear your mind since writing code requires a strong, fresh, and active mind.

Be part of programming communities

Be part of programming communities as well as surrounding yourself with other programmers. Read articles on programming, watch podcasts, and be part of programming meetups. There are great programming communities on every social media platform be part of them even a community of programming memes is a good idea, memes can teach you new concepts.

Ask questions

Do not hesitate to ask questions to your fellow programmers, we all learn through asking questions. You can ask questions on a platform like twitter you will get responses from experts though communities like Stackoverflow and Quora are the best for programming questions.

Start with the basics

When you start learning to program do not skip the first pages of a book or the first minutes of a video tutorial. Start with how to declare a variable before trying to save data in a database. Always learn the fundamentals then jump into frameworks and this will make your life easier.

Challenge yourself

To master programming, there is a need for consistency. You need to practice every day. The twitter dev community has a 100DaysOfCode challenge which is very helpful. You can use it for consistency sharing of updates on your programming journey and you will be able to meet experts that can help you become a better programmer.

Lastly, remember counting starts from zero and the root is at the top of the tree.