The difficult part is not having direction, and not having direction stems from not knowing what direction leads to what end point. You’re completely new, everything is being seen and read for the first time. So you do what most new programmers do and turn on YouTube. You play your first video about a language you heard mentioned a few times, and you follow along, take notes, and get some idea about what programming is.
My mistakes..
The biggest mistake I made when I began my current journey was not researching the terminology. What does full-stack mean? What does front-end, back-end, web developer, web designer, and *insert language* developer mean? So I did what I described in the first paragraph, I turned on YouTube and played a video about JavaScript, all the while not knowing that some concept of HTML (used for displaying content on a website) and CSS (used for making that content look good) was required to get the most out of what I was learning. Yet, I didn’t understand this so I decided to take a 14 hour course, and by the end of it I had no idea how I would go about implementing anything I learned (where does JavaScript even go!?).
Now, this is where I made an even bigger mistake. I stopped. I looked at this OOP jargon (Object oriented programming) I took notes on and it made some sense, but it didn’t transcend past words on a page. And thus I switched to a different language, SQL (think databases). I decided to learn SQL because there was about to be job openings at my work. Although, I didn’t end up getting that job I made a similar mistake to when I tried to learn JavaScript. I was back to understanding the syntax, but not able to make those words on my notebook into a database (again, where does the database go!?).
The solution was easy..
I tried to do too much from reading and watching. When the entire time I was taking notes, I could have built something and been learning at the same time. The biggest break through for me was when I started learning while building projects. And even though I didn’t know everything and got stuck a lot, I had something to show for it, which kept me motivated. It’s great to build your toolbox of knowledge by reading about the way something works, but beware of burning out. After, I had invested lots of time into JavaScript and had no real way of showing someone what I learned, other than describing what “could happen”. I lost the reason for why I started in the first place. So I began researching how other people learned to code, and that’s when I came across the best way for me. Build a project, while you learn the language.
You can start building a project with zero prior knowledge using lots of different sources, but make sure you think about out how committed you are. If you are anything like me, you love free content, but you don’t want your time to be wasted. So my recommendation, is Udemy.com.
Udemy, isn’t super expensive as there are always deals, but it goes back to my earlier point. You don’t want your time to be wasted. If you are willing to invest in yourself then you should be fine spending a small amount of money. Free sources are great, but I learned more from a $20 course on Udemy (that had 47 hours of content) then ALL of my earlier sources combined. And by the end of it, I had a couple of projects to be proud of.
Final thoughts, JavaScript isn’t a bad starting point, so don’t walk away thinking that. It was just the way I went about learning JavaScript that was flawed, same thing with SQL. And if you don’t know what language to start with, look up “Top programming languages for 2016” and spend a little time researching salaries, openings, and what those languages primarily build. Let google searches guide your hand, and once you decide on a language. Find a course and start (whether it’s YouTube, Treehouse, Udemy, or any other site). The point is, you have a desire to program most likely because you wanted to build something. So build something, and learn while you do it!