25 Tips for New Developers: Advice from a (Mostly) Self-Taught Software Engineer

25 Tips for New Developers: Advice from a (Mostly) Self-Taught Software Engineer
The most common question I get from blog readers is "What is your advice for new programmers?" So, I thought it was time to write up my thoughts.
I will write up my full story in the future, but I took two computer science classes in college. Then, I got a software engineering internship shortly after. I started doing web development work, initially on the backend and then eventually on the frontend. My college definitely did not teach web development, let alone within the first few computer science classes, so I taught myself.
I don't think my story is unique -- all programmers are self-taught to some degree, whether that's fully self-taught or that they have a masters in computer science, but they taught themselves RegEx along the way. In fact, self-teaching may be one of the most important skills you can have as a developer.
In addition to my own experience, I also teach people to code as my primary job and for organizations I volunteer with -- so this article is drawing on that experience as well.
The rest of this article will have my tips for started.
My Tips for New Programmers
1. Have your reason, and remember it
If you want to start programming, there has to be a reason for that. Whether its that you love writing code, you want to have a more lucrative career, or that you are doing a bunch of Excel work and you want to make that more efficient. Keep track of that reason; programming is hard, and you will get frustrated sometimes. It will be essential to keep that reason in mind to stick with it. You could put a sticky note on your computer, a note on your home screen, or (like me) write it on your mirror with a dry erase marker.
2. Build a solid foundation
This may be a unique piece of advice, but I think its really helpful. Before you start writing code, if you haven't looked at math in a while, I would revisit the concepts from Algebra 1. Most of programming is built on algebra 1 math -- i.e., functions and variables. Understanding these concepts outside of programming will be super valuable in the future. I recommend Khan Academy's Algebra 1 course!