HELLO WORLD
Student To Software Professional - A transformation Guide
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“Hello World!!” That’s how your first piece of running code would have exclaimed as you started your journey into the world of programming. Yes, you have come a long way since and this chapter is going to help you further. Writing Code – obviously that’s more or less what you do as a professional programmer and get paid for! You already are capable of writing code to address a problem or implement an algorithm. This chapter is going to suggest how you can do it better and in more professional manner. Can you answer this simple question before proceeding – Would you feel delighted when seasoned programmers shall appreciate your ability to write code proficiently right from the beginning of your career? Yeah? Well, you’re on the right track, continue. In college, the evaluator and that’s why you would primarily be concerned only about getting correct output. Aspects like Time and Space complexities, Hardware specifications, Portability across platforms, Performance and so on would be overlooked or seldom taken seriously. However, the scenario changes when you are working in a reputed organization where your code impacts numerous customers or users across the globe. The solutions you contribute to must better or at least be at-par with what competitors have to offer. Enough said. Let’s head to the business starting with discussion about a good code editor, followed by useful coding practices and guidelines while touching upon the trivial mistakes (sometimes blunders) committed by programmers. It’s a promise to keep things crisp and not kill you with the extra-detailed instructions. Code and Text Editor You just can’t write code in the air. An editor is required for programming and for professionals a good editor is a must. Getting used to a new editor may seem arduous initially. However, once you get comfortable (which doesn’t take long with little interest and persistence), it becomes an extension of yours and you’ll be able to do all the necessary stuff as effortlessly as possible. In case you wonder What-is-wrong-with-the-good-old-white-notepad? Well, nothing more than the fact that using notepad for programming in a professional environment is like using spoon for a shovel. While working on a project in any corporate environment, you need much more functionality than the basic Type-Cut-Copy-Paste. Also, browsing through the code across multiple files is certainly cumbersome with a primitive text editor. Using a good editor enhances your productivity multi-folds. Take navigation for instance, pressing arrow keys repeatedly is certainly not the way a professional programmer traverses through the code. In any professional editor, there are shortcuts to navigate by characters, words, lines, code blocks and files so that you can accomplish more in lesser key strokes and without even touching the mouse. You’ll soon realize that being able to scroll through the code and do operations like select, copy, cut, paste without a mouse gets work done much faster and efficiently. Also, working with multiple files within a single instance of the application makes it easier to manage and faster to maneuver. ...
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About the Book
This book would be highly useful for • graduates who are going to join industry soon and would want to distinguish themselves right from day one, and • students aiming to be better software engineers and at par with professionals right from college days. There is a huge gap between how things are taught and learned in college and the way they are applied in industry. For example, one hardly considers aspects like scalability, readability, maintainability, portability, reusability, security concerns, performance, space and time complexity, or even readability while writing code in college. For most of the students, the main objective is just to display the correct output. After all, that’s what you would be evaluated upon. However, these—and more—aspects are crucial when you take the responsibility of writing or evaluating code at a reputed organization whose image is at stake with every single line of code being added to its repository. This book aims to help students understand and realize how the things are done in a more professional manner in the industry and make a smooth transition from campus conditions to corporate environment, at least from a coding perspective.
About the Author
Ashish Vaidya With a diverse industry experience of over 5 years up his sleeve, Ashish has innovated and filed patents in almost every technical domain he worked in. He holds B.Tech degree in Information Technology from National Institute of Technology Karnataka and worked with big names like Citrix and Novell. His current assignments are with Amazon. He is also an avid writer and his articles are regularly published in international eMagazine IUeMag. Reach him at contactashishvaidya@gmail.com. Pankaj Pal After spending 8 wonderful years in software industry with companies like Mentor Graphics and Citrix, Pankaj is now focusing on on his own projects – edusagar.com and an online social learning platform. He holds a B.Tech degree in Electronics and Communication from Delhi College of Engineering. He can be contacted at pankajpal.dce@gmail.com.