I studied the Colt Steele udemy course, but I could not complete the course because of Could9. Then I started studying at Free Code Camp, and I finished Responsive Web Design Certification while I’m in the middle of JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures Certification. In addition to some courses, HTML CSS and Javascript.
I am currently starting Full-Stack Web Development with React Specialization in Coursera, but I feel very distracted, as I have known a lot of courses in web development on Udemy.
In fact, I am feeling lost in how I decide and adopt one way.
then you can choose to practice by doing projects (the projects here on freecodecamp are the only mandatory part of the curriculum to get certificates), contributing to open source projects, doing something of your own inspiration, asking friend and family if you can update their website or they would be interested in a website, in exchange of a pizza or something…
I can’t make a decision and decide which one. I chose freecodecamp, but I found some difficulty with some things, so I was thinking about to take course before freecodecamp.
Decision paralysis can be overwhelming, but you’re better off picking the non-optimal course of action and committing to it than you are spinning your wheels. One of the things it can be hard, but important, to remember in life is that not making an explicit choice is making a choice not to change things.
You’re going to encounter this sort of scenario often as a programmer. Which library should you bring in for your project? Which framework should you use? What new language do you want to learn to be prepared for the future? In the professional world, we often “timebox” these decisions. My team will tell me “Spend three days looking into it, checking out the options, and talking to people. Then tell us which one we’re using.” You might want to do that for yourself. Say that you will pick what course you’re really going to follow by Friday and really get going on it this weekend (or whatever). If you spend a few weeks on it and consistently think that it’s not a good course, sure, drop it completely and don’t look back. It’s still not time wasted.
This is a very common way that I see new programmers get caught in a tutorial loop. The thing is… every course will start being difficult (at least it should). A lot of students panic and decide that the problem is that they didn’t understand the previous material - so they go back and relearn the same material over and over. It becomes a form of procrastination. The secret is … this shit is hard . You’re going to need to struggle with it.
When you come to a point in your course where you don’t understand or feel like you haven’t been given enough information by the curriculum definitely go ahead and use other resources! That’s a super important skill. Google things. Read explanations written by multiple sources. Find some example code to fiddle with. Come here and ask for help (even if you aren’t focused of freeCodeCamp).
What you don’t want to do is leave that task to go start a whole other course or tutorial. That’s just going to have you doing this:
I am unable to answer your words … you have indeed fully described my condition.
I am very encouraged to move forward on freecodecamp, and all I take is a step forward. I feel I have to refocus more on what I have learned. The reason behind this is the fear of losing an important piece of information or point. This prompted me to think about taking several courses with a video series, then returning to complete the freecodecamp. After reading your words, especially the video that describes my condition completely.
I read a lot of reviews about the courses and they all put freecodecamp at the top, but some comments indicated that freecodecamp contains a lot of irreplaceable information and saves some time.
Please help me answer one question. Is the freecodecamp path sufficient to become a professional web developer and if I come across a difficult challenge I try to deal with without going back and starting again with another course?
but you will not find one course that will make you a professional web dev. A course can give you basics. After the basics you need to practice, practice and practice. Build things. Create your own portfolio. Contribute to open source projects. Create stuff. Use what you learned. That’s the path.
freeCodeCamp.org alone isn’t enough to get you “job ready”. In fact freeCodeCamp.org is not even enough to do all of the freeCodeCamp projects! Part of what you will learn to do in your journey is how to find good resources and how to make good use of them.
freeCodeCamp provides a good core structure. The early sections do a better than average job of getting you familiar with the fundamentals of web development. The projects give you practice actually building something on your own. Getting to a professional skill level though is about putting in a butt-load of work.
Pick one course to do at a time. When you reach a task that the course has not taught you, search for the specific information that you need. That doesn’t mean doing another course. It means doing research on how to achieve a specific goal.
A full university program from the best schools in the world doesn’t provide you with every answer you need to complete it. The art of programming is the art of figuring shit out and making it up as you go along.
Become proficient in Linux. This is easy enough to do these days as you can install Docker or Virtualbox + vagrant and download vagrant files for various distros. Centos and Debian are the ones you want to be able to get around in them, install a web server, database etc. using the package manager, view and edit configuration files. Basically this boils down to a good working knowledge of command line linux in a shell.
You will absolutely need to understand how to ssh into machines, scp files.
You need to be comfortable with command line git, and how to use it to clone a repository, create branches, merge code and push/pull to remotes. Companies are typically using github, gitlab or bitbucket, so you can get experience with any of those. Just learn about github to start.
There are basically 4 development paths:
Devops (which used to be Sysadmin) Not going to go into this much
Front End (html, css, javascript w/ json and ajax, one or more js frameworks (react, vuejs, angular)
RIght now, the most in demand of these, and also the path where I think it is most likely you can come in as a jr developer and find employment thanks to strong demand and a relatively standard set of technologies, is as a Front End dev.
I hope this gives you some practical advice to focus you on a path.
this shit is hard 