A few tips from a software dev:
Use StackOverflow it’ll answer a ton of your questions.
Don’t ignore libraries, there’s too many devs trying to reinvent wheels.
When you first start write bug fixes and features for open source projects. This way you get use to coding standards and hopefully when you do write an app the code is readable by others.
Finally, when you do go off on you own start small, and then shrink that. Every dev initially tries to do way too much, fails, and hopefully learns their lesson.
this is great stuff. Do you think some of my time should be dedicated to bug fixes and pull request for open source project as part of my learning?
I like bug fixes for starters but it needs to be a newer project or on a new feature. If you’re working on something we’ll established remaining bugs might be hard to fix. Basically newly reported bug are nice for starters.
Also I noticed you don’t really have any backend languages listed as what you’re studying. I’d recommend looking into getting a basic understanding of Java(specifically the Spring Framework), and SQL. Full disclosure I’m a backend guy so I’m biased lol