Stop reading and JUST start writing code.

I've been stuck in coding limbo because I kept looking for the right answer.

And I've learnt over time that the right answer will come to you only when you know what exactly you're looking for.

So start coding.

I think you're partially right, because it helped me a lot to actually read the basics first. Understand the environment you're working in..

And then start coding!

@bruterik ah definitely.

Not saying that you should not read anything in advance, but don't fall into the trap of just reading, literally writing what the tutorial says and leave it at that.

Go do your own thing, take apart something, write your own web scraper, whatever.

Then keep googling for answers as you go along. :)

I'd almost give the opposite advice. Know what you want to build before starting on the code.

@simeg it depends on what you're setting out to achieve.

If you're striving to build a product then by all means, laying out the design and foundation before coding is a definite must.

But since this was meant to be advice to new developers, I've found that sometimes the newer guys are too scared to write their own code, for fear of "doing it the wrong way".

Besides, in the art of doing, you may gain some clarity on how things work; god knows how many code I've written and re-written just to understand exactly how that particular pattern work.

As someone teaching themselves Java I couldn't agree more. Reading text books or online sources can be just as overwhelming as opening an IDE with an idea and having to implement what you've been reading. Practice practice!

@enen yes I agree with you in everything you said. I meant that you should sit down and think about what you want to build, how it should work and why it should work in that way before starting to write the code. Easier said than done though!

@kileak Ah, yes for new developers this can be correct. But I still encourage people to think "what do I want to achieve with this next piece of code that I'm going to write?" before jumping into stuff. This may be aimed for more experienced developers idk.. interesting topic nonetheless!

I'd say it's a back and forth process.

Spend most of your time getting your hands dirty and writing code.
But after you've been at it a while, take some time to step back and reflect.
Repeat every once in a while.

@simeg you're right. Once you progress past understanding your language of choice, with the basics down pat, the next natural step is to figure out what you're supposed to be building.

@jiraTicket nailed it down pat though; it's an ongoing process of coding, taking steps back to reflect upon your understanding, and going back to code again.

The one thing that I'd recommend to more experienced developers though, is to start learning on design patterns and algorithms. My take is that knowledge acquired from learning this is that it's language agnostic, meaning it's something you can apply across different languages.

I've started doing a lot of Hacker Rank challenges to learn algorithms and logics, and less on language nuances. It's great practice, I highly recommend it if you're serious about development.

Sorry for long post, here's a potato