A common misconception is that only a very small part of the population has the capacity to be a programmer. And while programming is not easy, it is certainly easier if you learn it from a young age. Fortunately, many schools and academic institutions are offering coding workshops or courses to teens and children, providing them with the tools and knowledge to become a programmer. Teenagers learn much quicker than adults, which is in part due to their ability to go with something without necessarily knowing where it will take them. Adults tend to over-analyse and struggle with not knowing the ins and outs of programming before they have begun.
New programmers will benefit from learning one language in depth and all the various concepts, before going on to learn other coding languages. There are many challenges that you, as an entrepreneur or new programmer may face along your journey, with some common problems outlined below.
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1- Estimating how long a task will take to complete
Giving your employer or a client a deadline, like most other jobs, is part of being a professional programmer. But as a new or budding developer, you need to know how to work within that framework and how long each task will take. This is something that people from all kind of professions will have to deal with. Especially as a freelancer or a remote worker you will have to provide your client with an estimate of how long it will take to complete. In order to provide an accurate estimate, consider how long similar projects have taken you in the past or break the project down into steps to which you can easily apply a time frame.
2- Duplicating code throughout the program
This a particularly annoying, but common issue among coders who will try to avoid duplication at all costs. Making a change to your code and then finding that the same method was duplicated in a separate file and not updated can cause a bug. If you write code that is duplicated this can be hard to maintain throughout. Data program handlers avoid duplicating code because this can result in bugs. If you have duplicate code throughout the program, one way to resolve this is through a technique called refactoring. This is essentially where you modify or reuse existing source code in a structured way. Look here for some tools programmers use to help with this.
3- Exception handling in Java
Exception handling in Java is a complex issue with varying approaches. In order to entirely avoid this, some programmers write software with error reporting features. Different teams use different methods and approaches to throwing or handling the exception. Take a look at this blog post here for 9 best practices to handle exceptions in Java for detailed information on how to deal with this.
4- Introducing bugs after making a change
In order to avoid introducing bugs after making a change to a line of code, one of the easiest things you can do is to write tests for the part you are working on. These unit tests check that the methods and functions in your program are working correctly. If you do end up with bugs, you will have to refactor or modify your code, although fortunately, you can keep the old code in place until you do so. However never make any changes until you are certain what the effect will be on the entire application.
