Getting Basic Understanding of Core Programming Technologies

The next step is to get yourself familiar with some software engineering concepts, methods and tools.

You should sequentially study the following topics through open sources, superficially but to a good understanding (see previous page on how to help yourself learn well):

• OOP basics - classes and objects, encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, composition

• Working with the compiler or interpreter command line, modules/packages of your language

• Linux / MacOS command line – just get used to it

• Debugging basics, IDE and step debugger, logs and asserts

• Testing basics (also read just a little bit about what TDD is)

• File and directory operations in code (I/O, open-close file, write etc.)

• Working with documents, archives and images programmatically

• Dictionaries / HashMaps

• Linters and code formatters

• Project / task management systems (you can just watch a few videos about Jira and similar tools to understand what it is and how team development process works)

The challenge with this section is that it's hard for me to recommend specific materials or courses. All these topics are quite complex and extensive, and the quality in self-learning will likely be mediocre.

Either a mentor or carefully planned study through thinking-through-writing of each point and its included topic separately will really help you here.

Literally - spend at least 2 weeks (or less if you really get it and know what you're doing) searching and learning topics in each point – read materials, Wikipedia, Reddit threads and so on.

Or... Find a mentor who will teach you, if such an opportunity exists.

I believe you can learn this quite well on your own if you study everything sequentially and through thinking-through-writing. No matter how much you learn - you'll definitely learn something by passing it through your thinking and investing enough time, and you'll expand your knowledge in the future, especially if you're building your knowledge base in your head with the help of writing your notes.

P.S. With about 80% probability, there exists a pretty good book for your programming language that will cover approximately half or even two-thirds of the topics I've listed here.