tips Archives — Coding Supply

Updated: May 9, 2018 Leave a Comment

5 Tips for Computer Programming Beginners

Every beginner programmer has their misconceptions about what programming is or questions about how they can best succeed in their career.

We put together 5 tips that every beginner computer programmer should hear and understand to make their journey easier!

1. Programming is a tool

It’s important to understand that programming itself is a tool by which you solve a problem, not the solution in of itself.

The solution to a problem is an idea that comes from your own brain – your code is how you implement that idea. Remember that you need to come up with the solution first, and then find the best way to implement that solution through clean coding.

The more experience you get, the better you’ll be at translating what’s in your mind into code. We have a list of the best websites to learn programming that can help you sharpen your skills.

[Read more…]

Updated: December 23, 2016 Leave a Comment

6 Characteristics All Great Programmers Have

Being a great programmer definitely isn’t easy, it’s a practice that takes more than just substantial credentials for someone to excel at. Some people may think the goal is to simply get a few years of professional experience and magically become great.

However, simply doing the job isn’t nearly enough of what can be expected from a great modern programmer. Let’s look at a few characteristics that pose as dead giveaways for great programmers:

1. Experience Matters

Experience is the best teacher, so it’s safe to say that a programmer with more experience will be better than one that hasn’t been around the block. In this case, judging a programmer’s qualification based on their experience means judging them on their ability to be insightful and innovative in their work practice.

For example, an experienced programmer that’s well-versed in older languages can put their experience to good use when faced with a problem and tackle it using different methodologies and perspectives, while a programmer that’s inexperienced and only effective with less frameworks and languages will most likely resort to repetitively trying the few methods they know, getting the same results over and over again.

While it may not exactly be the “fairest” way to determine a person’s worth, experience is and always will be the most valued trait a coder can have.

[Read more…]

Ultimate Hacking Keyboard Review – Worth the Wait?

In early December, 2015 I came across a Crowd Supply campaign for the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard. Like many professional programmers, I have a mild obsession with mechanical keyboards and ergonomics. It didn’t take too much convincing for me to pull the trigger on my first (and still, only) crowd funding campaign. I certainly wasn’t alone […]

What’s the difference between PL/SQL and SQL?

If you’ve been doing some work on Oracle databases or just learning more about the RDMS, at some point you’re going to stumble across PL/SQL, or “Procedural Language/SQL“. Most programming curriculum I have seen never touches on anything like PL/SQL so it often comes as a complete surprise – so what exactly is PL/SQL, and […]

Learn Simple Encryption – Coding a Caesar Shift

As long as there has been civilization and written language, there has been a need for encryption. Encryption is basically the act of disguising your message so that (hopefully) only the intended recipient can read it. While you likely associate encryption with internet protocols and WiFi passwords today, there’s a very long and interesting history […]