When it comes to learn anything new in life, we are always afraid to take a first step. One of the biggest things that holds people back is not only to believe on themselves, but most likely listened to the outside world. I remember when I wanted to switch my Cabin Cleaner career to be a Software Engineer, they were lots of people telling me "It Is Impossible",You Are Not Smart Enough "You Can't Do It Because You Are Too Old"
All those negativity opinions could have held me back if I didn't take my future seriously.
. I also remember woke up one morning telling myself "Hey Gabriel", "No One Can Control Your Future", "If Becoming A Software Engineer Is Your Dream, Go For It . If It Doesn't Work Out In Your Favor, It Is Fine. At Least You Have Tried"
Something that I have learnt, and I think it is really valuable is that Failure Is Part Of The Success. Dont ever be afraid to fail because it is the only thing that will guarantee you success in life. Looking back if didn't take that decision to change my career, I could've been working right now as cabin cleaner. During the process it took me almost a year coding full time between 8 to 10 hours a day without any days off to become a full stack developer because I wanted to learn as many skills as possible without knowing that you will learn more by surrounding yourself with other developers.
You really need The basic to get hired. Yes, I know, it sounds easy to just say Basic, but to honest, it is the only thing you need since most companies have different ways to implement their software.
Companies dont want someone who knows Javascript, Python, Java and so on programming language, they want someone who is capable to adapt himself to whatever technology that is thrown to him. This is why I always tell new developer "To Learn How To Learn". Meaning, you need to know how to search answers. For instance, when I decided to build my portfolio from scratch, I wanted to build something unique. It really pushed me to search on Stackoverflow, Read Documentation, Contact Developers On Twitter,Quora, Facebook and so on.
If you are someone who wants to switch career for whatever career you are in to be a front developer in 3 months without having to go to a bootcamp, then you might want to read this article from start to finish. Amongst many guidelines that exist regarding this topic, this article is based on my personal experience as self-taught full stack developer without any exposure in technology and computer in the past, but who was able to start freelancing, making money online while learning the skills
Again, like anything in life, when you want to accomplish a specific thing in the short period of time you need to know Why You Want To Learn It At First, then Define Your Plan, and Set Your Goals and finally Take An Action.
Why do you want to learn to code at the first place?
Well, knowing why you want to code will help you to be more efficient in your learning journey. 80% of people who want to learn to code nowadays fail because they aren’t realistic and listen to so many successful people without really knowing what those have done to reach to certain point of their life. Yes, it is easy to go on youtube watching people saying: How They Land Their $300k At Google, $200k At Amazon , $250k At Facebook And So On but what you dont know is their background. they might have been coding since they were young. dont try to compare yourself to someone else. Just use people as motivation. In my research, I identified two main reasons amongst lots of reasons that might exist out there to really help you identify your category. One reason is the influence of successful people. The majority of people want to become a developer nowadays not only because it is highly paying job,but also because it is a guarantee for a successful future, however, what people don't pay attention to is the fact you really need to have the Grit and Determination before jumping on that journey.You will be going through lots of self-doubt, and you will ask yourself sometimes if you can really become a developer. .Another reason that I think it is comprehensive is someone who dont really like his current job or perhaps his current situation, and want to switch career as quickly as possible. This reason is more realistic and can help you to really push yourself faster and therefore, you could potentially lead to success. It was my case, I wanted to switch career as fastest as possible. Before starting on planning to become a developer, make sure you know the reason why you want to do it, and it will give you motivation to keep pushing yourself forward until your accomplish your goals.
What is your end goal?
Now, you already know why want to become a developer. It is time to come up with your goals. You need to think about the type of companies you want to work for.For instance, you might want to work for big companies such as google, Facebook, amazon and so on, you might want to work for small business-like digital agencies , you might want to only freelance, meaning that you want work for individual clients, or You might want to just build your own business. In my case,I was really realistic, I knew getting a job at Google will be like win a Lottery so instead of focusing on learning Datastructure and Algorithms like most students do and ended up getting no jobs, I instead focused more on building projects so that I could hit the ground running on day one to a small or medium companies as soon as possible. Yes, it worked out. I also knew that with the year of experience building applications, I will really understand programming in depth and will be able to join Google, Facebook or Amazon as software engineer. Depending on your goal, you need to come up with a good strategies . Now, you know why you want to be a developer, and you have come up with a good strategies, think about your how you can transform that strategies into a reality
What is your strategy to transform virtual goal into reality?
Come up with strategies is an important key feature to succeed as programmer. There are three strategies that we will take a look at: Think About How Many Hours Available You Have Per Day To Code If you are single, married, have a kid, work full time and so on, it is important to know how many hours you will have per day.This will help you to be as productive as possible, and you will accomplish your goals efficiently and faster. Knowing Who You Are Knowing yourself is one of the key important features to a succeed. For instance, you need to know how long you can really stay focus,and don't try to go beyond your limit otherwise, you will be just wasting time. I remember when I was learning concepts that didn't stick first, I wanted to finish that lesson before going to bed. but I was ended up wasting my whole hours and will come back the next day to learn the same concepts. Which Time A Day You Are Really Mindset Available let’s say you have free time in the morning, afternoon or at night. If you really know that you likely get more focus at night, it will be way more productive to study at night. In addition, if you are more concentrate while studying in the library again, plan to always go to a library. It is particularly important to know yourself because everyone has his own way to do things. For me, I was always learning at the library and also at night when everyone sleeps At this point, you know all strategies that can get you where you want to be. It is time to move to resources.
5)resources
There are so many resources nowadays that can really overwhelm someone who just gets started with programming,but luckily I am here to give you all the resources that I used to learn front end development in addition to some reference that people have used, and they were also successful. Before even starting listed those resources, if you are new, you might be asking yourself “What The Hell Is Web Development?" Well, according to Wikipedia, it is broadly a task associated with developing websites for hosting via intranet or internet. This definition makes perfect sense when you are already a developer, however, it won't make sense to someone who just gets started with code. For this reason, I like explaining things by taking real world example. let’s break it down in 3 parts, which are front end, back end, and full stack. Front End Developer think of it as someone who works in the visual part of the website or the web app. think about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram as you interact with another users. You saw your friends' pictures, you share contents, you like contents and so on.It is basically the interactivity. Something that you do, and then see the result instantly. Back-End Developer: someone who works in the abstract part of the website. This is more about logic. For instance, when you share your photo on social media or write comment for specific post on Facebook, you see what it is happening, but you don't know how things are happening. You dont know how other users get the message that you have sent to them. Full Stack Developer: someone who works in both front end and back end. It is my case, I love being in both departments though I am more a logical person. I assume you have never programmed before since this article is more focused on getting your first job as front-end developer or you might have started, and you just want to use this article as reference. You should learn Html and CSS at first. First Resource Is The Head First Book By O’reilly: This book is such amazing, and it has changed my life forever. It will teach you html CSS like a pro. The thing I really love about this book was the visual aspect, the author really use images and things we live every day to explain concepts as simple as 2 years old can understand. Second Resource Is Html CSS By John Docket I didn’t personally use this book, lots of my followers from my Facebook group and twitter told me it is a great resource for beginners. The Third Resources Were Codingphase.Com. I really like that resource because he teaches html and CSS in the very easy way,and you can get your first job as html email if you are really focus on his course. I remember getting an offer for html email but I denied because I wanted to work as React Developer. Stupid, I was. Dont ever do that.
6) Use the resource in your advantage
Like anything in life, to become good at something, it is the matter of practice. Practice practice practice makes perfect. Use a Blog Note while reading through the book, you need to make sure you are taking note as well as highlighting things that you don't really understand. Something you might want to keep in back of your mind is that you are not going to understand everything at first, but exposing yourself to certain things would really help you in the nearly future. Just be aware of!
7)don't download any source code from the course if you are watching videos or from book if you are studying by book.
It is important to type everything from scratch because that would really train your muscles memory and help you getting familiar with programming language syntax.Do every single activity in the book even if you feel comfortable because repetition is a key of becoming a successful programmer. Also, pause video if you watch video and solve anything the instructor tells you to do.
8)Use YouTube to build your first project
After learning some basics syntax either from book or from video, go on YouTube and type “Basic Html CSS Project For A Beginner” then follow that tutorial from start to finish. Don’t try to memorize things but instead focus your attention on understanding so that you can rebuild the same project from scratch. It will help you to get the syntax down and move you to the next level. Build Your First Html CSS Project From Scratch. At this point, you should be confident with your html and CSS level, now think about any project you want to build. For instance, you might want to build a restaurant website or a website where you want to share all your pictures or so on.You really need to challenge yourself and think about how you can come with the plan. while you are building your project, start learning Git and Github so that at the end of your first personal project, you can host your code somewhere online and share with the community. You Need To Deploy Your Website Online Before moving on to a JavaScript portion, you will need to deploy your site online. you will need a domain for your site as well as the hosting. Hosting your site online will gain you motivation,and you will feel powerful since million of people could be able to have an access to view your site.. Congratulation,you have just accomplished half of your goal. you might even need to start applying for job, but I would recommend knowing the basic of JavaScript.
9)learn your first real programming language.
I will recommend you start with JavaScript but if you have a personal programming language, then go for it. learning html and CSS were great but both are just markup and style. Now you need to start thinking about logic. For example, think about how the user can interact with your site as they are navigating through. For instance, the user might click something and have some pop up happen. I would personally recommend you the Head First JavaScript by O’reilly because it will give you a foundational aspect of the programming language, and you will have a good grasp. If you follow the same advice that you have used for html and CSS then, you will be way more successful. You can also look up some stuff online while learning with book. Start A Full Project With Html CSS And JavaScript. Again, follow someone project on YouTube and type everything from scratch. Don’t memorize but instead focus on understanding and from there, rebuild the same project from scratch, and then build your personal project,and host your code on GitHub and deploy it online so that people can view your site. if you want to build a facebook login page, check this article.
9)start building your portfolio
Don't wait until you feel like you are ready to start applying for jobs. Start as soon as possible you have any project that you have built from scratch. no copy and paste from any source I made that mistake, I wanted to know all the technologies before applying for jobs and that cost me one year. Reach out to many people whether on Meetup, LinkedIn,Twitter,Friends and so on. Always act like you are already a developer. Sometimes, company is on the hurry,and whoever who applies get lucky and get hired. Dont hesitate, Just apply Congratulation again . You just finish with the core concept of web development. You know html CSS JavaScript git and GitHub.
10)optional recommendation
you can either jump to a library or framework like React, Vue and angular depending on where you live. if you want know what to learn before joining to a library. Do some research about the library or framework most companies on your area use.
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if you want to connect with me, please email at fonoandy@gmail.com