Advice to Beginner Self-Learning Programmer

Career Advice
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I am a Second-year Business Student. For two months I have been learning Programming and pretty much-having fun. I am seeking for advice regarding the right way of learning (time, schedule, books, etc), things that can help me in the future, suggestions after seeing my work, etc.

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Hi @preetirajak333,

What is your goal for learning programming? Are you looking to eventually get a job as a developer? Or are you looking to continue learning just for fun?

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I do want to get the Job.

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Hey there,

which job do you want to get?

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I have started learning coding since a couple of months now. So I pretty much learned HTML and CSS. Starting with JS in few days. So by this you might have known that I am just a newbie. So for now I just have thought of learning The Big Threeā€¦so I guess front-end. I am not sure tho!

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So do you want to finish your business degree?
Do you want to learn web development or do you have something else in mind?

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Iā€™m on on a similar journey myself. I havenā€™t started applying for jobs yet, so take my advice where itā€™s coming from. That being said, these are the things that I have found most useful so far:

  • Following this roadmap to getting the skills needed to work as a front-end developer.
  • Have a coding project going at all times.

To elaborate a little bit more on the second point:

This is something I wish I had known from the start: Setting aside time every day to focus on creating something is essential for learning new things, identifying the gaps in my knowledge, and keeping me excited about the long learning process.

Like I said, I wish I had known this from the start. But what happened instead is that I learned HTML and CSS, then started learning JSā€¦ and I neglected to build more things in HTML and CSS while I was learning JS. By the time I wanted to start building my portfolio, I was having trouble remembering how to do basic things in HTML and CSS, and had to review quite a lot. That made me doubt myself, and feel like I was not ready to start applying for a job.

In two weeks Iā€™m about to focus on React, but Iā€™m making sure that I set aside time every day to build things in CSS, HTML and plain JS.

I find that I learn more in an hour trying to build something than in 2 of just reading, watching videos or doing small coding exercises.

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I want to complete my business degree and planned to learn programming as much as I can till I finish my grads. And start applying for job in programming. But I am unsure about a lot of things. Like which field to get into in programming (this field is vast as you know) and what should I start doing now to be good enough to compete again degree holding engineers out there.

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That have been a great help. I wish you the best for future. Good Luck! :+1:

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Many programmers do not know the basics of database structuring and fundamentals of programming.

Ensure that you know this first, no matter what language you choose. There are great videos on YouTube and you can go far without paying.

Do not try to remember all the coding. Learn what you use a lot and the rest can be searched.

It might by a good idea to create an app, with search facilities, in which you can save code, which you do not use often. Maybe I must develop one and put it on my website for free download? My time is an issue at the moment, but it can not be that difficult to do.

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dear sir, do you have any video recommendations about programming fundamentals and database structuring (on youtube or whateverā€¦)
the one that easy to follow for beginner like meā€¦
Iā€™m asking cause there are so many of themā€¦ donā€™t know which to watch

I personally do love ā€œpython fo everyoneā€ by charles severanceā€¦ I was hoping that I would find videos/lesson with simmilar kinda explanation

thx

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This is a great idea. And as someone said, can you give recommendations for videos about fundamentals and data structure? Thanks already!

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Not a video, but SQL Anti-patterns is an excellent book about database design. The key takeaway is really just variations on ā€˜learn why normalization is important and how to apply those principals in practiceā€™, but it really is an excellent book.

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hey thanks thereā€¦ Iā€™m gonna give it a look

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So it seems that you should learn some timeless fundamentals.

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs:
https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Programs-Engineering/dp/0262510871/

Introduction to Algorithms:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-3rd-MIT-Press/dp/0262033844/

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I do not listen to them anymore but I believe that this bloke is very good. This is an introduction but apparently he has courses on both on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR0jg0eQsZA

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This is a good course to follow.

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I was once in your shoes 6 years ago. I went to school for business but decided to teach myself how to code after graduation. Iā€™m now a Senior Software Engineer.

What worked best for me is having a project then start filling in the pieces needed in order to complete your project. For example I wanted to create a Pinterest clone. So what did I need to create this app?

  1. First I need a backend where I can create users and pins and store them in an SQL database. So this means I need a web framework like Django or Rails, which means I need to learn Python or Ruby. The backend should also return JSON to be consumed through ajax requests which means I should understand REST APIā€™s.
  2. Next I need to create a modern frontend which means Iā€™m going to use vue.js or react.js. This means I need to understand HTML, CSS and JS.

Iā€™ve found that by focusing on completing a project like this I retained everything I was learning since I had a motivation to learn it so I could complete a piece of my project. Once I had a better understanding of creating a project from end to end I started making video tutorials where I would explain the whole process. I rarely shared my tutorials but I found that by forcing myself to explain how to build each piece forced me to have a better understanding.

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Each and every comment is of great help. This idea of making the community by freecodecamp and people like here, who are so willing to help makes me feel so good. Thanks a ton everybody.

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Hi @preetirajak333 ,

Good to know that you want to make a career out of programming.
One thing that I have realised upon landing a Junior developer job after teaching myself to code is that your degree/background doesnā€™t matter and you can always start from scratch to learn programming.

There is so much free resources and good people on the internet today that you can literally learn and become a developer without spending a penny.

But the caveat is that it is very easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of resources and roadmaps that you want to study and it puts you in a state of doubt.Also impostor syndrome is a real thing in the beginning stages of your learning period.

That said,here is the path that I personally took and I believe no one path is perfect.People learn to walk in different ways and there is no one size fits all.

  • FreeCodecamp - Complete Responsive Web design and JS algorithms and DS certification. For the Front end libraries path it is enough to complete till Sass and can come back later to it while learning React.

*Net Ninja - Complete the Modern JS Tutorial .Should be available on Youtube and Udemy.Build the projects along with Shan!

*Traversy media - Complete few of his crash courses for front end.Pretty much everything that you need is on his channel.

After this you must be pretty comfortable coding in HTML,CSS and JS.Time to dive deep in JS.

All the above would have taught you the tools of the trade but nobody teaches you whatā€™s under the hood than Tony Alicea.

Complete Javascript Understanding the Weird Parts ,pretty old but still highly recommend.

After this keep revisting the concepts of Javascript,HTML and CSS from any of the resources.Read through Javascript.info,MDN Webdocs and w3schools.Practice few problems and solve them using JS on Codewars/Hackerrank/leetCode.

If you get stuck thne have a look at -JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures Masterclass | Udemy

Hurray ! you are ready for applying jobs at this stage

Next step is to choose a a Modern JS framework/Library.Can be Angular/React/Vue.Personal recommendation is React.

1.Read throught reactjs.org and understan their motivation.
2.React the Complete Guide - By Maximillian.

At this point you wouldnā€™t need advice,you would have become self sufficient to know what works for you,what you need to work on and get the right resource for it.

Cheers,happy Coding ! DM me on LI for any queries https://www.linkedin.com/in/arvindkumarts/

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