The 7 Biggest Mistakes To Avoid When Learning Programming

As people start their programming journeys, they are often overwhelmed by all there is
to learn. Consequently, they make mistakes or develop bad habits that will make their
attempts to become a programmer much harder. These mistakes can be discouraging,
and many people give up on learning how to program because of them. There’s so
much to learn when you start out that you want to make your journey as easy as
possible. Learning from the mistakes of others can help to speed along this process and
make it simpler.

Some of the most common novice programmer mistakes include coding without
planning, not practicing every day, attempting to memorize code, and not following good
coding practices. By taking some time to learn the common mistakes of beginning
programmers (and how to avoid them), you can sidestep a lot of stress and save a lot of
time.

The 7 Biggest Mistakes Of Novice Programmers:

1. Trying To Learn Everything At Once
2. Trying To Learn By Absorption
3. Coding Without Planning
4. Waiting Too Long To Start Building Projects
5. Not Practicing Every Day
6. Not Following Good Coding Standards/Practices
7. Trying To Memorize Code

Trying To Learn Everything At Once

When it comes to software development, there are a massive amount of concepts you
could potentially learn. You could learn a wide variety of languages, APIs, libraries,
development platforms, algorithms, and other tools. There’s so much to learn that it can
often be overwhelming to novice programmers, and there’s no way that one individual
can learn absolutely everything. Because of this, it’s important that one gets comfortable
with the idea of being a lifelong learner. This also means that instead of worrying about
learning a bunch of different languages and libraries right off the bat, you should focus
on learning just one language.

It’s important to get the basics of programming down (like different data types, data
structures, algorithms, and other fundamental concepts) before trying to learn other
languages and platforms. When one is first learning how to program, there are so many
core concepts to learn that even mastering the basics can be daunting. Trying to add
languages and libraries on top of that can be extremely confusing, and will make
learning the core concepts harder than it needs to be.

You’ll also want to stick with one language and core concept to prevent fragmenting
your attention. Trying to learn multiple languages or frameworks means switching
between these subjects, and potentially forgetting what you’ve learned in one subject
while you learn another subject. Forgetting things will slow down the learning process,
and it can become quite easy to get discouraged when this occurs. For these reasons,
stick to learning just one language first. Once you’ve sufficiently mastered one language
you can try branching out to others.

Trying To Learn Only By Absorption

It’s tempting to just watch tutorial videos, or read a coding book, and assume that you
are learning. Just reading/watching, as opposed to doing the exercises or coding along
with the text/video, can be tantalizing because it feels like you are making rapid
progress. However, just watching videos or reading isn't enough to learn. You need to
actually write out the lines of code.

Your coding will be painstakingly slow at first. But with more and more practice, you’ll
develop muscle memory and an intuitive sense of when to use what commands. Every
time you write out a line of code you are building the intuition and muscle memory you’ll
need to make coding easier and more like a second nature.

Coding Without Planning

Something that many beginning programmers do is start programming without any

direction in mind; they don’t plan for how the program should operate or how the goal
should be met. This is like trying to build a house without blueprints or trying to write a
novel without an outline. If you start coding and trying to write a program without a well-
thought-out idea of how to tackle the problem at hand, it’s likely that you’ll waste time
trying to implement a solution that won’t work. It can be extremely frustrating to write
many lines of code and suddenly realize that the solution you are attempting to use
won’t work for the problem at hand.

In order to avoid these types of problems, think about possible solutions or algorithms
that might work before you start coding. It’s incredibly handy to have an outline prior to
commencing work on a project. After all, it is inevitable that you will try solutions that
don’t work—making mistakes it part of the learning process. However, you can save
yourself a lot of time and effort by considering which solutions won’t work before you try
to implement them.

And speaking of making mistakes, you’ll want to take some time to familiarize yourself
with the debugger for when errors do happen. The debugger attached to IDEs will help
you troubleshoot problems by highlighting lines where a crash may occur. While you
can debug a program by just printing outputs at various points, debuggers let you
display complex data structures and do debugging without having to re-execute the
application. You can also watch as variables change with a visual debugger.
Waiting Too Long To Start Building Projects

When initially learning how to program, it’s tempting to hold off on writing your first
programs until you have gained a sufficient amount of knowledge. Beginning
programmers often lack confidence and want to absorb all the information they can
before starting projects of their own. It’s not a bad thing to start off by learning from
others, but unless you try putting what you’ve learned into practice, it will never stick.

It’s important to start experimenting with the tools you’ve acquired and to move from
theory to implementation. Actually starting to write your own programs will help you
build confidence as you solve problems and begin to use the tools you’ve learned
about. You’ll also find that, as you bring together the concepts you’ve learned about into
larger, more complex programs, the things you’ve learned will stick better and you’ll be
less likely to forget them. That said, the programs you start writing don’t need to be
large and complex. Even making small programs will boost your confidence and
increase your recall for the techniques and tools you are using.

Another advantage to building things, rather than just reading and following along with
tutorials, is that you will develop a wealth of reference materials you can use. You’ll
have scripts containing code samples that you can refer to when you need to remember
how to do something. Additionally, writing programs from scratch serves as a good way
to double-check your knowledge of concepts and techniques. As previously discussed,
you might feel like you’re learning when following along with tutorials, only to later
discover you didn’t really absorb any of the instructions or that you don’t really
understand how to apply certain techniques. Finally, when you do begin building large,
complex programs you’ll be able to include them in your portfolio.

Not Practicing Every Day

When you first start learning to code, it’s important that you do some coding every day.
Repetition is one of the best techniques for learning, as seeing concepts over and over
again will help to make them stick. Spending thirty minutes to an hour every day
working on projects will keep what you are learning fresh in your mind, and through
repeated exposure you’ll come to a better understanding of the language you’re using
and of coding practices in general.

Obviously, there will be some days when you may not have time to sit down and code.
But it's important that you don’t take too long a break from coding. Go too long without
coding and you’ll definitely start to forget things. Even if you can’t commit to coding
every day, be sure that you set aside a couple of hours at least a few times a week for
coding.

Another important thing to understand about your coding habits is that even though you
may start out highly motivated to learn programming, there will inevitably be days when
you don’t feel like coding. That’s okay. Even things you are passionate about require
work and work is often daunting. However, it’s important that you don’t settle for just
putting things off until tomorrow. (Tomorrow has a way of becoming the day after
tomorrow, and so on.) Instead of relying on motivation, which is often fleeting and may
take days to manifest, cultivate discipline. Building discipline will help you push through
those periods of low motivation. Consequently, you will see real progress in your
learning. It’s also likely that your discipline will transfer to other parts of your life.

Not Following Good Coding Standards/Practices

Beginning programmers typically have their hands full with just getting their code to
function properly. As a result, they often don’t pay attention to writing good, clean code.
Even if they are aware of the fact that clean code is expected of them, it isn’t uncommon
for people to see these standards as arbitrary, annoying rules. However, the truth is that
taking some time to learn good programming standards and practices when you first
start out will end up saving you a lot of time and energy in the long run.
Programming languages have formatting standards that they encourage programmers
to follow. For instance, Python has the PEP (Python Enhancement Principals) series of
guidelines that cover things like how to use blank lines, how to use comments, when to
use capitalization, and more. Though these guidelines may seem arbitrary, they are
created to help ensure that code follows a common, user-friendly format. It’s important
to ensure that your code is user-friendly because it assists in reading and understanding
what a program does.

If you haven't taken the time to properly format your code, you may find yourself
struggling to read old code when you return to it. You’ll likely have forgotten the exact
purpose of individual lines of code and, if you haven’t followed proper coding practices,
you may find it quite difficult to discern the purpose of a section of code. This makes
referencing your old code to find solutions much harder. If you are struggling to read
your own code, consider how difficult others will find it to interpret your code when they
lack the context you have. Having messy code will make working with others difficult
and will result in a frustrating experience, which can hamper your ability to find a job.

For these reasons, it's important to follow good programming practices. Investing just a
little time now to learn the established standards of the language you are using will save
yourself and others quite a bit of time and stress in the future.

Trying To Memorize Code

A common mistake made by beginning programmers is that they try to learn through
memorization, like trying to memorize specific answers to a quiz. However, there are
two major problems with trying to learn programming like this.

The first problem is that if you try to learn through rote memorization of lines of code,
you won’t develop any understanding of how the various tools and functions work
together. You won’t be able to generate a program by yourself, as you’ll lack any
genuine understanding of the concepts underpinning the lines of code. The second
problem is that it’s simply not feasible to memorize thousands of lines of code.

If you take some time to understand the concepts being used and the steps you’ll need
to take to solve a problem, you’ll be much better off. The exact syntax you need to use
to carry out a task in your chosen programming language can be found by checking the
documentation of the language, or by just searching the Internet. Yet you can’t Google
how to implement an algorithm if you don’t even know what algorithm you need to use
in the first place. Don’t worry about memorizing the exact syntax you need. Focus on
understanding the basics like data structures, classes, and variables, and the syntax will
come with time.

Summing Up

Avoiding these seven mistakes will help you in two different ways. For one, they’ll
increase the speed and effectiveness with which you learn. They’ll also help you build
good habits for the future.

Focusing on just one thing at a time, coding along with tutorials, starting on projects
early, and practicing every day will make learning easier and more intuitive, and will
prevent you from wasting time. Meanwhile, focusing on understanding over
memorization, planning before coding, and following good coding practices will create
good habits that will serve you well as you create programs for the rest of your
programming career.