There are a lot of small, detailed things you probably need to know to become a "rounded" development professional and they are only really learned "in the tren

There are a lot of small, detailed things you probably need to know to become a "rounded" development professional and they are only really learned "in the trenches" so to speak. Don't overly stress the "process" you are using, if you ask 10 people this question you will probably get 10 different answers, the best process is one that is repeatable and you feel works for you. The process can also change depending on the type of project you are working on, team size and location, tools being used....don't be afraid to try different things out & see what fits. Down to brass tact's, unit testing I find to be most important when it comes to tests, write the test cases first, then write the features they are to test. Learn git and setup a repo for every project you develop - even personal side projects. Use github. Use a good project management, task management tool like pivotaltracker.com Use to use frameworks e.g. zend and other MVC frameworks correctly, use industry conventions and existing libs, you do not need to reinvent the wheel for everything you need to do. Learn search and sorting algorithms for a start, then start of popular design patterns - only way to really understand these is to use them. Finally I would strongly recommend you try and get a junior development job or internship with a good dev shop, this was by far the best thing I did when I was learning how to program for a living. Nothing else will match it in terms of learning & giving you confidence. Hope this helps in some way.