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Getting started the right way as a developer is tough, so I wrote you a letter I'd love to have received some ten years ago.
Getting a diploma does not mean the end of studying
Holding that shiny piece of paper you worked so hard for in your hands? Congrats!
In reality, you are just getting started. While your official studies are over, it does not mean that you do not need to learn new tricks anymore. Quite the contrary, actually: modern software evolves so fast that you need to learn new things every day to stay current. It's a good idea to come up with a daily routine of checking what's new in your field. For developers, Hackernews and Proggit are good for this. Ask what your colleagues read.
The real gems – and most satisfying lessons – lie in the comments section. When browsing Proggit, I recommend reading the comments before committing fifteen minutes to reading a nicely titled (or click-baited) article. Do this. Do this daily. Even on the weekends. You will thank yourself in a year.
Sound advice?
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Monday December 05 2016, @08:11AM
TFA harps about mentors, but I don’t think I ever really had one. I had taught myself 6502 machine language at the age of 11 from photocopied scraps of C-64 reference manuals. After I got an IBM-compatible PC in the late eighties, I taught myself x86 assembly language from Peter Norton’s books and for a long time his Pink Shirt Book was the most well-thumbed reference on my desk. I later learned C from a copy of the new K&R book and a few other references, using Turbo C. And then I got into electronics engineering college and then I got seriously started with Linux and it has dominated my destiny ever since. I taught myself Perl using the Camel Book and online references, and similarly learned Ruby from the Dave Thomas book and other online references. I didn’t really have much of a mentor at all in those days: my father had gotten me the hardware and the software and he taught me the rudiments, but I very rapidly surpassed him in skill.
The closest I ever had to mentors came fairly late in the game, first with a bunch of upperclassmen I had in my college days, and then a guy who was something like CTO of the first company which hired me (whom I later effectively replaced in that capacity in the successor company which followed). But I didn’t really complete tasks together with them or had them really teach me that much (hints and suggestions here and there at most) or critique my work, especially with the latter one. He was my boss. The college upperclassmen were closer to being my peers and friends than ‘mentors’ as the exchange of knowledge went both ways.
I can see how having had one might have helped, but think I got along just fine without one.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 05 2016, @09:19AM
He harps about mentors because millennial socialites are totally incapable of working alone. Everything must be a social activity. If you don't code socially, you're simply not a coder. It's like social drinking. You don't want to be the sad loser gulping sixpacks of beer in the basement, and you don't want to be the basement dwelling hacker who's not a real coder because real coding is a social activity.