Learning, upskilling and staying in touch with latest technology and trends are a part of any software developer\u2019s life. They are not optional extras, but are vital to the successful achievement of your career goals. However, there are some common learning mistakes that developers often make regardless of where they are currently in their career. Let\u2019s take a look at them today, and I hope you will pick up a tip or two that will help you become a more efficient learner in no time.<\/p>\n
There is a saying that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail and this applies to learning too. Sometimes, developers get impatient and plunge straight into active learning without any preparation. For example, a developer might say she wants to learn a Javascript framework, React, and started reading tutorials about that React without any outline on what areas she wants to focus on, or how to get to her end goal, being able to write React applications. The better way of learning, in this case, will be looking at the official documentation, going through the step-by-step approach from main concepts to advanced guides and API reference, creating a sample application in React, looking at and learning from other examples out there and setting SMART goals for each stage of your learning. S.M.A.R.T. goals are good goals because they\u2019re specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.<\/p>\n
There are so many new technologies and new ways of doing things in the software development industry. Don\u2019t get me wrong; I believe continuous learning is a good thing. You can only grow our skill set and knowledge if you are open to learn. However, if a developer is too FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) about learning every new thing that she hears about, then there will be no time left for actually being productive and putting her knowledge and skills into good use. Before you learn something, I\u2019d encourage you to think about why you\u2019re learning it and where and how you\u2019ll use your newly learned knowledge or skill. For example, if you\u2019re a backend developer, and you\u2019re leaning Javascript, you\u2019re doing so because your goal is to move to a full-stack development. Or if you\u2019re a DevOps and learning AWS, you might be doing so to increase your chance of a new employment opportunity at a company that uses AWS.<\/p>\n
Every heard of the saying, everything but the kitchen sink? Sometimes, developers get too greedy with wanting to know everything about a topic that they fail to narrow down and set a very broad learning objective. How board is too broad, I hear you ask. In my opinion, a topic is too broad if you can\u2019t articulate your learning outcomes in a few words to another developer. Learning outcomes are statements about knowledge or skill a developer should acquire by the end of her learning journey on a specific topic. Sure, you can be learning about a particular topic forever, but there must be a point when you decide for yourself that it is enough, for now. Enough for you to feel confident in working toward and achieving your end goal. For example, some learning outcomes for learning React Javascript framework are:<\/p>\n
Learning outcomes
\nBy the end of my learning program, I should be:
\n- Able to create a new React app from scratch that can
\n-- Consume JSON payload in a REST API
\n-- Refresh the content of the app every x mins
\n-- Navigate to different screens
\n-- Remember the last screen I visited before (if any)
\n-- Be Unit-tested<\/p>\n
Note that the above learning outcomes are not too specific or detailed (like creating a component in JSX syntax, for example) because you don\u2019t know about the ins-and-outs of the React framework yet. They are not too broad either; there is a clear outcome for each statement instead of just a broad, generic one, like \u201cCreate a React app\u201d.<\/p>\n