For new software development students, “must-haves” often means a long list of important skills to learn, but too long a list often leads to confusion and stress.

This article attempts to list a few of the most important skills, but also hopes that through this list can give a relatively clear focus and path of learning.

Learn a programming language in depth

You can’t be a programmer without mastering any programming language.

Many programmers try to learn several programming languages at a time at the beginning of their education in order to cope with the demands of their first software development job. While I think developers will eventually learn more than one programming language, I don’t recommend doing so at the beginning. Because learning more than one language at a time just creates confusion and distracts from learning other skills. Instead, I recommend learning a programming language in depth so that you feel more confident writing code in that language.

How to organize your code

A novice programmer needs to learn how to organize code properly when he or she is done with the language, or better yet, when he or she is done with the language.

Learn this valuable skill with Steven McConnell’s Code Complete.

Organizing code means writing good, clear and understandable code that doesn’t require a lot of comments because the code itself is self-annotating. Many software developers do not possess this skill in their entire careers, but it is the primary criterion for judging a software developer’s skill and competence. Good code structure represents not only the completion of the coding work, but also the dedication to the coding business.

For novice programmers, clean, clear, and well-defined code will make it easy for you to pass the interview.

Upgrading the code structure has become an important part of software development, but the process of improving it can be very rigorous. This process requires no new code to be written, but requires a significant amount of time with team members to maintain the existing code.

Object-oriented design

In order to deal with object-oriented design ideas in software development, developers also need to learn an object-oriented language.

Object-oriented design is a method of designing complex programs by dividing code into separate classes and objects (instances of classes) that encapsulate specific functions.

We’ve always tried to manage complexity in software development, and thinking in terms of objects helps us do that. Object-orientation allows us to clearly define and design a complex system without a bunch of complex components.

There are a number of functional programming languages out there, but when it comes to software development, you’ll find that the most popular languages and models are heavily influenced by object-oriented design. This requires a deep understanding of classes, inheritance and how to use them, as well as polymorphism and encapsulation.

Data structures and algorithms

Software developers should be familiar with the following data structures:

  • Arrays or vectors

  • The list

  • The stack

  • The queue

  • Tree structure

  • The hash

  • A collection of

Mastering and skillfully using the above data structures can help developers clearly define, access, and manage data. With proper data structures and algorithms, many difficult programming problems can be solved.

There are several common algorithms:

  • Sorting algorithm

  • Search algorithm

  • Graph search algorithm

  • Dynamic programming algorithm

  • Pattern matching algorithm

Good at using good algorithms, can play a double the result with half the effort. If you’re not familiar with the algorithm, it’s hard to come up with a good solution, which is why we need to know the algorithm.

In fact, data structures and algorithms are one of the most interesting areas of software development. Using data structures and algorithms to develop a clean, concise solution can work very well.

Gayle Laakmann McDowell’s book “Cracking the Coding Interview” covers everything you can learn about algorithms and data structures.

Learning this knowledge is a challenge, but it is well worth it. Mastering any one of these skills will put you far ahead of the rest. This knowledge is what other software developers don’t have.

Development platform and related technology

You should have at least some experience with one development platform and the technologies or frameworks associated with it.

Platform usually means operating system (OS), but it can also be applied to other abstract systems that are similar to operating systems. For example, you could be a Mac developer or a Windows developer focused on the Mac or Windows operating systems, or you could be a Web developer focused on a specific Web platform.

Professional knowledge of a particular platform means not only familiarity with the platform itself, but also with the development tools, patterns, and general frameworks commonly used by the development platform.

Framework and technology stack

In addition to learning specific programming languages and platforms, it is important to learn and master a framework and technology stack.

A framework is a set of libraries for developing code on a particular platform or platforms that often make common programming tasks on that platform easier. For example, most C # developers use. NET Framework to write C # applications. The.NET Framework consists of a number of libraries and classes that allow C # developers to work at a higher level of abstraction.

A technology stack is a little different from a framework in that a technology stack is a set of technologies that usually include a framework and are often used together to create complete applications. Technology stacks make it easier to create applications because they provide many common paradigms that developers use to develop applications, so knowledge can be easily shared. Learning the technology stack is very valuable because it means you have all the skills you need to develop a complete application. Many companies that develop applications using a particular technology stack are also looking for software developers who are familiar with that stack.

Database Basic Knowledge

Currently, there are two main database technologies: relational databases and document databases.

Developers today should be familiar with relational databases, but they should also be familiar with document databases.

In software development, a database is often used to store data for an application.

At a minimum, developers should know the following about databases:

  • How a database works

  • How do I perform a basic query to retrieve the data

  • How do I insert, update, and delete data

  • How do I add a data set

Source code management

Managing source code is an integral part of any software development project. Before you use the source code, you should have a network to share all the files for your project.

The most basic function of a source code management tool is to keep a history of changes made to files in a software project. It also allows multiple developers to work on the same code at the same time and to merge the processing code together.

All developers should know how to use source control tools so that they can examine code and fuse it from multiple sources.

Build and deploy

Today, most software development projects have some sort of automated build and deployment system. There are also many different software applications to help teams automate build and deployment tasks.

build

When you write code and incorporate it into a source code management system, you want some way of knowing that your incorporated code is working well, and you need to build it. The build compiles all the code in the system and makes sure there are no compile errors. A complex build system can also run unit and user tests, or code quality checks, and provide some reporting on the current state of the code base.

The deployment of

The deployment system is responsible for deploying code to a production machine or to some kind of test environment.

While it is not necessary for developers to become experts in deployment, it is also important to understand the basics of the system and the process of building and deploying code.

test

Today, many software projects have adopted so-called agile processes, where software developers and testers work more closely together. Code quality becomes the responsibility of the entire development team, so developers need to have some testing knowledge as well.

At a minimum, the following basic terms should be familiar to developers:

  • White box testing

  • Black box testing

  • Unit testing

  • The boundary conditions

  • Test automation

  • The acceptance test

debugging

Software developers often spend around 90% of their time trying to figure out why their code isn’t working. Debugging code is an integral part of the development process, no matter what language you’re working in.

So developers should make up their minds to learn how to debug code efficiently.

methodology

Some software development teams follow certain methodologies as they write code and complete their projects. So developers should be familiar with at least the basics of many of the most common software development methodologies, in this case waterfall and agile.

conclusion

Although there are a lot of things you should know about software developers in this article, you may not know much about them, but don’t be discouraged. What we have to do is to seriously supplement these knowledge and constantly improve themselves.

Development skills can ensure the smooth progress of our development tasks, and development tools can improve the efficiency of development. Grape City controls have been committed to the vast majority. NET platform developers to provide high quality development tools products.

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