Your First Year in Code

Unit test - An automated test that makes sure a single, isolated piece of code (like a class or method) does what it’s expected to do. Unit tests usually run very quickly and can help build confidence in a tricky piece of code. The best unit tests verify a unit’s behavior, not its implementation—that is, they test what it does, not how it does it. This way the code can be refactored without breaking the test.

Clean code - Code that has minimal dependencies and is easy to read, well-tested, and error-resistant. Truly clean code is a standard that isn’t often achieved in the real world. The best developers strive for this ideal in a pragmatic way, improving existing code while making realistic compromises.

when you talk through a problem aloud it can help you have a deeper understanding of it, leading to ways to resolve it

You may not be remotely the cause of the feelings; you are only responsible for how you handle those feelings and what you are going to do about them

You know how you can sit in your room watching Netflix all day and it doesn’t bother you, but if someone orders you to sit in your room and watch Netflix all day, it becomes an awful chore

In fact, if my job is growing too tedious, I sometimes use a side project to remind myself why I love code.

But error messages, helpful as they are, are limited in how much they can help you. After all, the designers of the language can’t know in advance all of the different ways programs written in their language can break.

How to read and understand error messages.
How to Google things.
How to read and understand technical documentation.
How and when to take a step back and ask for help.
From my experience as a developer, I can say that I spend 90% of my workday doing one of those four things.

overwhelmed

Becoming a great programmer is primarily about your ability to act as an interpreter. You can’t be ultra-productive only by being awesome at coding