Most important points you must follow to become a good programmer

Programming is the process to implementing various sets of instructions to enable a computer to do a certain task. Computer science is not the study of programming. But, it is an important part of what a computer scientist does. Becoming a programmer is a process to build up your skills day after day and year after year.

It's true that anyone can learn how to program, but it's also true that not anyone can be a good programmer.

To become a good programmer and sharpen your programming skill you must follow these points -

1. Learn from your work - The more you program the more you learn. Try to solve a new problem every time, it will always help you to learn something new. Don't think somebody will come and let you know what is programming.

2. Learn more by helping others - We always turning our heads towards forums or groups only when we need help. But, the rest of the time we are separated. To improve your programming skills, frequently need to visit the forums and often help others. Understanding others’ problem in their context, investigating on that and providing solutions - will help you learn much more than before.

3. Use someone else code - Use some else code but make changes in it, because improvement is the only feature of coding. Mostly every programmer use Google to solve their problem. So, don't worry, cheating is acceptable in programming. But, learning something new from someone else code is more important.

4. Contribute to open source - Use all your concept to make a good project and share with everyone as open source or help to fix bugs in open source projects. Let people review your code. You may not earn from it but it will help you to learn many shortcomings in your code.

5. Find a mentor - Through the Internet is vast and knowledgeable, but a mentor is better to help you in two ways - they assist you follow best practices based on their experience and if they have a network of people, they could refer you to possible future opportunities.

6. Learn programming is not a process of studying for a test - Programming is not like you memorize everything and write down on paper or computer. In real life, you have to solve more critical problem than your school days.

7. Try to solve small problem first - After learning something new you need to put that knowledge and understanding to work, have to find out where your gaps are. The best way to do that is to try to build something. Pick an idea for an application that is simple enough to do it with some effort, but nothing that will take months to complete.

8. No need to be a math genius - If you don't know more about math or don't have any interest in math, it doesn't mean that you can't be a good programmer. Programming is all about logical thinking and problem solving attitude.

9. Never stops learning - Technologies change day by day. So, a good programmer always tries to learn ongoing basis to stay updated in their career.

10. Passionate about programming - Find your passion in programming, this is the only way to become a good programmer. It will help you to think differently, and always find a way to solve a complex program personally and professionally.

11. Get Involved in the Community - This is one of the most important parts of becoming a good developer. Most of the people skip this part because they think it’s useless, but the truth is - IT REALLY WORKS. You will be amazed by just how much you can learn of an hour or two of talking with other developers.

12. Co-working spaces - You could easily find a nearby co-working space just by looking up “Co-working space <YourCity>”. Co-working spaces allow you to share knowledge with other developers and getting real feedback on your codebase.

13. Learn techniques - Programming languages, tools, and methodologies come and go. That’s why it pays to get as much experience as you can with as many languages and frameworks as possible. Focus on the programming fundamentals, because the basics never change; pay more attention to architecture than to programming.

14. Read documentation - One of the essential habits of a good programmer is that they read lots of documentation. May it be specifications, JSR, API documents, tutorials, etc. Reading documents helps you creating that essential foundation based on which you program in the best way.