This is the best time to be a developer. Right now, this profession is one of the most-demanded, so if you want to step up your game in the industry, you definitely have potential. Still, you need some tips and tricks to beat the competition, so here are the best things to know in 2021.

Find the Right Tools to Use

Tools can make your life a thousand times easier when you’re a developer. Tools can minimize errors, maximize your productivity, and help you do things faster – and better. From an excellent product for animations to tools that can help you debug codes, this list of tools for developers should provide you with all you need to thrive in the industry.

Dedicate Tons of Time to Planning

Before you create any kind of project as a developer, such as a web application, you need to know why you need to launch it, how, and how to get it done. Planning is essential if you want to succeed.

Planning includes everything from analyzing your market, to planning your budget, to outlining every single step you’ll take to get the project done.

Use VCSs Often

VCSs or Version Control Systems are responsible for managing all the changes you make to documents, sites, computer programs, apps, and more. This is software configuration management at its best, and your best way to keep your project clean and ready to deploy.

Practice by Refactoring Others’ Code

As you progress in the industry, you’ll find that other people’s coding often annoys you. If you’re better at it than them, you’ll find errors that need fixing, or think of ways to make it better. Do this in your spare time – or even offer people assistance. This doesn’t mean that your programming style is the best and only correct out there, but it’s still a great practice.

Keep Working on Your Knowledge

If you aspire to become an amazing developer, you need to constantly work on your knowledge. Practice, read, learn, and do everything to keep up with the work. This industry changes every day, but thankfully, there are tons of resources right there at your disposal.

Practice Your Commit Messages Writing

For every commit that you create, you need a good message that will be engaging for those who read it. Commit messages serve to tell people what the code does and why you created it – and even how it works. Many will read this instead of the actual code, so you better practice how to do it right!

Practice Writing Tests

You are probably thinking: “I’m not a Java programmer, why do I have to do this?” You’d be very wrong to think this. Unit and integration tests are an amazing way to see if your code works.

Work on Your Scripting Language Knowledge

Do you know at least one scripting language? If you don’t, this is a must right now. Every engineer should be familiar with at least one language like PHP and Python. This teaches about loops, flow control, conditionals, and other things that will come useful in your career as a developer.

Pick Your Frameworks Wisely

Many of the applications developed nowadays rely on frameworks like Flask and Rails and Django. Yes, you can use them with minimal knowledge, but it’s much better if you know what they actually do. Learn how these work before you use them blindly.

Study Debugging

This is not hard to master, and it is actually a lot of fun! Debugging will teach you tons about your code, so learn how to use a debugger on the programming language you’ve chosen. This is a crucial skill and a great deal of practice for you.

Use Paper When You Feel Blocked

If you feel like you cannot complete the code, take a piece of paper and start writing. This is now considered standard practice in competitions for developers and programmers.

Get Away from the Computer

This sounds silly, but planning your code away from the computer, the tool you are using to write it, helps you build a clearer model before you begin.

If You Don’t Need It – Don’t Use It

You don’t have to use design patterns if you don’t have a reason for it. Simplicity is trending right now!

Stay Away from Deep-Nested Code

This is much harder to reuse or maintain, and will create bugs more often. Instead, favor shallow code hierarchies.

Prioritize Security

Many developers skimp on security measures in every unit of code they create. Security should be your top priority right now – don’t wait for the framework to handle it for you.

That’s it! With some effort and your great talent, you can develop amazing products this year!