7 Essential Tips Every New Programmer Must Follow

0 Introduction

As a programmer with nearly ten years of experience, I want to share advice I wish I had when graduating, to help you become a better programmer.

1 Keep Healthy

Long periods of sitting, lack of exercise, insufficient sleep, and dehydration harm health; programmers often suffer from neck and back problems, high blood pressure, and other ailments. Research shows that staying in the same posture for hours cannot be compensated later. Take short breaks every 30‑40 minutes to walk, drink water, and chat.

三寸气在千般用，一旦无常万事休 –《金瓶梅》

Quit Bad Habits

Common harmful habits include smoking, drinking, and excessive sugary drinks. These act like addictions; quitting them improves both physical and mental health.

Exercise Recommendations

Regular activities such as yoga, pilates, table tennis, or jump rope can relieve musculoskeletal strain and boost metabolism.

2 Cultivate a Hobby Outside Coding

Having a non‑coding hobby expands your social circle, prevents burnout, and often sparks creative solutions. Examples include playing musical instruments, drawing, cooking, or martial arts. The goal is to enjoy the hobby without pressure to become an expert.

3 Continuous Learning

Software development requires lifelong learning. Master core concepts (operating systems, networking, data structures, algorithms) and stay adaptable to new frameworks such as Backbone, Angular, React, and modern build tools like Maven, Grunt, Gulp, Webpack, npm scripts.

Examples of legacy technologies: SSH, jQuery, Adobe ActionScript, Backbone.js, Angular.js, React.

4 Respond to Mistakes Properly

Adopt a growth mindset: view errors as learning opportunities rather than failures. Acknowledge shortcomings, experiment, and learn from each mistake.

5 Don't Be Limited by Your Role

Explore upstream activities like requirement analysis and downstream tasks like testing, deployment, and monitoring. Learning from other roles (QA, DevOps, backend) broadens perspective and enhances your value as a programmer.

6 Show Your Creativity

Communicate ideas clearly through sketches, static prototypes, or paper prototypes. Use simple HTML/CSS/JS mockups to quickly validate concepts and avoid waste.

7 Practice Hand Speed

Fast typing and command‑line proficiency improve productivity. Repeatedly building the same page reduces time dramatically and reinforces shortcuts, search‑engine use, and StackOverflow skills.

8 Summary

Good health, a non‑coding hobby, continuous learning (especially English), a growth mindset, role flexibility, clear expression of ideas, and fast execution together form the foundation for becoming a strong programmer.