Whether you're just beginning your career as a web developer or you're a veteran programmer, there's always room for growth. However, developing good habits will help improvise your talent and ultimately achieve your career. Here are some tips for becoming a more significant developer, regardless of your level of skill.
Tips For Freelance Web Developer
1. Don't stop learning
No matter how skilled a web developer you are, programming is a process of learning constantly. As new technologies and frameworks are launched, you'll have to keep yourself updated to remain competitive. Dive into the Stack Overflow and GitHub to find the answers to questions you have or scan through the questions other developers ask. Develop a reading list of industrial blogs and magazines. We like these resources:
- GitHub Blog
- CSS Weekly
- Website Valley (OK! we're slightly biased)
2. Contribute to open-source
Working solely on your projects can provide you tunnel vision. However, leaving coding to work hours limits your opportunity for development. If you want to mature as a developer, get into coding as a hobby for pure joy. On another side, get involved in open-source.
Jump onto GitHub and start acting on open-source projects. Helping other developers solve their problems will help nurture your creativity and problem-solving skills. As a bonus, it also increases your profile as a better developer. When you do good work on open projects, you start developing a solid reputation in the development industry. This can open up new opportunities.
3. Conduct of code review
Most of the companies have a culture of code review. Beforethe code is pushed, the development team shares it for the sanity check. This process is in the place where you work. If it's not, you can be the one to start it.
Code review not only helps pick up problems in your codebefore they turn into bugs on your site. It also makes you put more thought into why you wrote your code the way you did. When you have to explain and defend the way you chose to solve a problem, it helps you reflect on the "why" behind your choices. Ultimately, this can help identify and eliminate bad habits and teach you new skills.
4. Document properly
We can't emphasize this strongly enough: comment your damn code. In a perfect world, documentation wouldn't be necessary. Code wouldalways be written for human readability first and machine interpretation second. But, unfortunately, this is not an ideal world.
There are times when code cannot be further simplified or made more readable. It's these times that commenting is imperative. Your comments explain to other developers the what, how, and why of your code base. It also helps you understand.
Build on the work of others
The great thing about web development is that you have a vast community of intellectual capital to draw from. Web developers have done and are continuing to do amazing things that push the boundaries of the internet experience.
