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Kelly Martin
Most of the answers here already are "how to be a computer programmer" and leave out the "professional" part.
Working on solo projects doesn't prepare you to be a professional programmer; indeed, if it prepares you for anything it prepares you to be a primadonna pain in the ass.
Unless you are one of the rare superbrilliant programmers who can design an entire system from scratch in your head overnight, you're not going to be developing entire projects by yourself. And that means you need to learn to work with others within a team. This means that you need to develop discipline and communication skills.
So, yes, you need to improve your programming skills, but even more importantly you need to develop good working habits. Document your code. Write useful comments that will help others who look at it later to figure out just why it does what it does. Use revision control religiously. Never commit untested code. Adhere to testing protocols, even if you have to make them up yourself. Write design specs for your own projects, then implement to spec.
Ask other people to review your code. Take their comments to heart. They're be wrong sometimes, but they'll be right more than they're wrong (if they're not, find different people to comment) and you'll benefit from their wisdom. Offer to look at other people's code too. Collaborate on projects even when you think you can "do it yourself". Network.
Once you've written something that other people are using, talk to them and find out what they like and dislike about it. Implement changes based on that feedback. Learn to treat customers as a meal ticket (because that is exactly what they are) instead of an annoyance (even when they are).
Working on open source projects is a good step in this direction, although many open source projects are terrible at discipline and at customer communication, so be careful about getting on such a project and falling into bad habits.
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Most of the answers here already are "how to be a computer programmer" and leave out the "professional" part.
Working on solo projects doesn't prepare you to be a professional programmer; indeed, if it prepares you for anything it prepares you to be a primadonna pain in the ass.
Unless you are one of the rare superbrilliant programmers who can design an entire system from scratch in your head overnight, you're not going to be developing entire projects by yourself. And that means you need to learn to work with others within a team. This means that you need to develop discipline and communication skills.
So, yes, you need to improve your programming skills, but even more importantly you need to develop good working habits. Document your code. Write useful comments that will help others who look at it later to figure out just why it does what it does. Use revision control religiously. Never commit untested code. Adhere to testing protocols, even if you have to make them up yourself. Write design specs for your own projects, then implement to spec.
Ask other people to review your code. Take their comments to heart. They're be wrong sometimes, but they'll be right more than they're wrong (if they're not, find different people to comment) and you'll benefit from their wisdom. Offer to look at other people's code too. Collaborate on projects even when you think you can "do it yourself". Network.
Once you've written something that other people are using, talk to them and find out what they like and dislike about it. Implement changes based on that feedback. Learn to treat customers as a meal ticket (because that is exactly what they are) instead of an annoyance (even when they are).
Working on open source projects is a good step in this direction, although many open source projects are terrible at discipline and at customer communication, so be careful about getting on such a project and falling into bad habits.
See Questions On Quora
Continue reading...
