13 Cheat Codes I Wish I Knew Before (As a Programmer)

#2 You compete with yourself not with other programmers

To become a good programmer, besides going to a bootcamp and taking courses, you need to know things that have little to do with programming but are as important as writing or testing code.

These are things that don’t teach you in online courses but will help you in the long run if you know them in advance.

Here are some of them.

1. Tools come and go, so don’t memorize stuff

Here’s a harsh truth, some of the things you’re learning now will be considered obsolete in a few years.

For example, I’ve been using pandas for many years for data analysis in Python, but recently I learned of a faster dataframe library that could take its place— Polars.

That’s not something exclusive to data analysts but also happens to web developers, software engineers, and anyone in the tech world. That’s why instead of memorizing how a tool works, you should aim for understanding concepts. This will help you easily migrate to another tool.

2. You compete with yourself not with other programmers

Life isn’t always a hackathon.

Nowadays it’s very easy to compare yourself with others. You watch a YouTube video and wonder “how can he do that, but not me?” or “how can he work at a big tech company while I’m unemployed?”

Truth is, there’s a story behind anyone you see online. Unfortunately, you can’t see what that person has been through to get there. That’s why comparing yourself with people you don’t know isn’t a good way to measure your progress.

If you want to compete with someone, choose yourself. Think of yourself 3, 6, or 12 months ago, and see how much progress you’ve made.