I started programming when I was 18 years old, but I did it just because it was required in school, I just did what was required, that's it. I didn't retain any information, nothing at all.
When I started university, I began to take things a bit more seriously. A lot of my curriculum was focused on Object Oriented programming, which was cool, but wasn't what I wanted to learn.
I liked building web applications, so I tried to figure out some way online to learn. I bought some Udemy class for full stack javascript, I watched Youtube tutorials and followed internet guides. And the results were...
Horrendous, I had been too busy following guides and just copy pasta coding. When it came time to trying to build something from scratch, I had no idea what I was doing because I wasn't actually learning, I was given everything.
In reality, coding is about reading documentation, applying techniques given by other developers and problem solving (stack overflow is a good friend). That is how you learn to code. The biggest problem with following guides to build projects is that you're given everything. A large part of software developing is problem solving, by following guides that aspect is eliminated.
The greatest advice I could give is simply just start something. Whatever you want to build, whether it be a web application or a mobile app, etc. Open the docs, read the "getting started" section, and voila. You're on your way to creating and finishing your first real project.
Also a nice side tip that helped me learn: Try and code for at least 1 hour per day. This really helps retain things that you've learned on previous days and keeps your mind fresh. Nothing sucks more than returning to a 3 week old poorly documented code base :P
Top comments (8)
I agree, learn to write from documentation. I remember the days when there is no Google and we learn to write ASM, C/C++ programs using books and other form of documentation. There was even no intellisense on that time, and IDEs are not as good as now :D
I think following some tutorials when learning a new topic is required. There are awesome instructors who can present the basic concepts very nicely. Not like the docs which seems very frustrating at the beginning.
Next comes the part where you will be able to build something.
But how do you understand the basics if you don`t watch these tutorial videos. I feel these videos are needed..after understanding how it works or what the tutorial is all about..you can now build other stuff with that knowledge.
Hey! Thanks for the reply, the “getting started” section in every documentation gives you the basics :) they even include their own little projects that incorporate everything.
lol..so how is this different from tutorial videos?...some tutorials gives you links to the documentation for you to read more then code their own little projects for you to code along too.
I still feel watching videos are important. It helps you grab the basics quickly as compared to reading.
Yes, you are right the best way to start coding is to start with something😃. Try to read docs and build something.