So, you want to be a software developer too? Great! So, where do you start?

I started with a mentor, my father. Someone who could teach me some of the more important principles, even though it still early in the World of Computers. I had to learn from books and magazines but more importantly, I had to learn by practicing! And that’s how you should start too. You need to practice your computer skills first.

But nowadays, you have one major advantage over me. You have the Internet and there are thousands of mentors willing to help you with anything you need. So, before you will learn to write programs, you need to know a few important resources.

The most important resource for all programmers is this simple search engine called Google. You probably know it already and it is used by quite a few people, although some people dislike Google and how powerful this company actually is. They might use Yahoo, Bing or even DuckDuckGo. That’s just fine but in my own experience, Google tends to provide the most relevant answers to your questions.

Google does this by profiling. They keep a history of things you’ve searched for and if you use Google Chrome as web browser, they will most likely have a good idea of your interests. If you also have a GMail or Google Apps for Work account then they will have an even better profile of you and your preferences. And yes, in a way that invades in your privacy! So you have to be smart in how you use Chrome and Google!

One simple way to get around this is by using multiple accounts. See this link on how to add more than one profile to Chrome. Make one account for any development-related stuff and make sure a Google account and mailbox is assigned to this profile. This is what you will use to let Google profile your development requests. Create a second account for anything that you want to keep more private and use whatever you like. This second account can avoid all Google products and can be used if you like to surf for porn or whatever else using Yahoo. Or to write on Facebook and read tweets on Twitter. But use at least two accounts in Chrome if you want to develop software!

While Google is profiling your development account, you will notice how all search results will start to relate more and more towards software development. This way, you take advantage of what many people consider an invasion of privacy. Just make sure that anything you do with the development account is development-related.

So, now you have the most powerful online resource available to you and as you continue to use it, it will learn more and more about the information you need. So, let’s focus on a few other resources.

An old resource is Experts Exchange, which has a bit unfortunate name. People tend to confuse it with Expert Sexchange, which happens when people forget the dash in the URL or put it in the wrong place. You don’t want to confuse those two! Anyways, EE has been a very useful resource for me for about 15 years now, although the knowledge-base of this site has become saturated. They also turned it into a paid website once, started serving advertisement and they have been losing members since new members had no free access to any answers, which annoyed many people. To get free access, you needed to get a minimum number of points per month by answering the questions of other members for which points could be awarded to you. It’s a good system and they’re continuously searching for new ways to get extra revenue. And they have a huge knowledge-base that they are continuously expanding. Still, there is a slightly better resource available.

This alternative is Stack Overflow, where membership is free, although not ad-free. When you answer questions on this site, you can receive points which increase your rank. When your rank increases, you gain more access rights on the whole system and can even become a moderator. And like EE, this site has already a huge knowledge-base. And this is just one of the many Stack Exchange sites! The makers of SO decided to use the same web software to set up various other sites for other topics and this received a lot of support, allowing them to keep maintaining the software and sites. With over 150 different communities and topics, this is one of the best resources online. But for developers, Stack Overflow should be enough.

Another good resource is Quora. But Quora is more generic and can have all kinds of topics. It is a good place to ask non-technical questions about software development, like what kind of chair you need, what the best setup for your monitor and mouse is or even what to do when someone copied your source code without permission.

And of course, there are many more resources online that you can use, but to start, download Google Chrome and set up that developer account. Then use the resources I’ve just mentioned and start searching for more resources that you think are useful. Add all these resources to your favorites and make sure your Google settings are set to synchronize your settings with Google. Why? Because it allows you to share your favorites with your developer account on multiple computers! Or to synchronize between your computer, your laptop, your tablet with Chrome and your Android phone…

You may have noticed that I talk about what programmers have to do and I have said nothing about programming yet! This is because you will need to prepare first. As a developer, the first thing you need to know is how to find the information you need.

One thing to keep in mind is that programming languages aren’t as important as they seem. A programming language is just a tool, like a hammer or screwdriver. You use it to create a product. For developers, that product is a piece of software. And for people who will use it, it just doesn’t matter how you created it as long as it just works as it is supposed to. So relax! Programming isn’t really about learning programming languages but about making products with your typing hands and brains! Just like a carpenter who makes furniture…