21–27 of 27 posts
You need a mentor. Freelancing as a junior dev is not a good move. Find a full time position somewhere that will train you and give you access to more experienced developers.
As a counterpoint anecdote, I did freelancing as a junior dev and believe I've turned out alright ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a counterpoint anecdote, I did freelancing as a junior dev and believe I've turned out alright ;)
Interesting, how did you turn out? And how did you turn out different from other people (with a mentor)?
Did Django web development for quite a while. Now I'm working for a large company using Coldfusion (bleh), PHP, and some Python.
I frequently feel that I'm not good enough and that my knowledge is in the wrong areas though. I've learned a lot about accumulating domain knowledge and working with legacy codebases lately.
A huge blind spot I had was only passing familiarity with mysql, being used to only using ORM's. I've mostly remedied that however and it's something I feel most webdevs should know more about.
So... I can't really answer either of your questions and I'm not sure it would be economical for either of us to try and test it. However I'm open to ideas!
I think the best way to learn to be a better programmer in your position is to find a more stable job with a good team of people. Learn from other people's experiences and mistakes. Working as a freelancer early doesn't have many advantages if you want to build a career, in my opinion. Other than that - Keep trying different things. Go deeper with the frameworks and libraries you use to understand why do they work th…
You will never get as strong feedback being a solo programmer - in fact, the feedback will likely be minimal.
I think the best way to learn to be a better programmer in your position is to find a more stable job with a good team of people. Learn from other people's experiences and mistakes. Working as a freelancer early doesn't have many advantages if you want to build a career, in my opinion. Other than that - Keep trying different things. Go deeper with the frameworks and libraries you use to understand why do they work th…
Agree 100% - I only am now starting to approach freelancing seriously after 2 years of development at several companies, and I found I have learned a lot from working with other people. Working with other people means you can bounce a lot of ideas between each other and you can see how others code in code reviews or just browsing their code. You will never get as strong feedback being a solo programmer - in fact, the…
You're at the point where you know some language and OOP at a decent level. You now need to invest time learning things like data structures and algorithms that are APPLICABLE to your work.
Keep adding incremental knowledge, but make sure it is having a direct benefit to your work at all times.
The "learning paradox" of having to master languages repeatedly is a waste of time at a junior level. You'll continuously invest in a new language without ever finding it applicable (eg. "learn java, learn JS, learn CSS/HTML, learn python, learn ruby, learn haskell, learn rust, then learn x-framework for each language, learn y-framework cause someone on the internet said x-framework is too bloated, learn this, learn that ...").
As your questions on line 3 asks, I say invest in the higher-level concepts that work across languages. Focus on a domain (some language, 1 or 2 frameworks, a DB) and stick with it.
And, as others have said, find a mentor. If you want to keep freelancing, you'll find a mentor at a meetup. You will definitely gain a lot from experience over a book/tutorial in certain situations.