Welcome All Newbies

Congratulations on your achievement @Mjesson33 , I love your excitement and how you are documenting your progress.:clap:t4:

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Hello, :smile:

I’m doing my third project in Front-end Libraries Course. :drum:
Even after learning programming for five months, I still feel like a newbie so I was interested in this discussion.
If there’s anyone who would like to do simple group project, I would like to group or join so that we can share experiences and discuss. :speech_balloon: :thought_balloon:

Happy coding!

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Thanks a lot!

Yeah I’m doing the Javascript data systems and algorithms course now, and definitely feel like it’s starting to all come together.

And spending a bit of time each day helping out others with html and css stuff on this forum. Partly because it helps me lock in what I’ve learned already and to give back help I was given.

I saw you’re a full stack MERN developer.
That’s pretty cool!

I saw a book about MERN and MEAN stack development and almost bought it. But I wanted to get my basics down first (html css and JS).

Any words of advice on MERN / MEAN and when to start checking that out in my newbie journey?

Howdy everyone, just wanted to share a cool message I sent to someone asking me for advice. Though you guys might like it or have some input.

Hey!

Ok well that is better than I thought.

I’m gonna answer on a few different subjects and give you my best recommendations. Sorry if there is typos I’m doing this on my IPhone.

On Career:
By the sounds of it and what you mentioned you were interested in learning, seems like becoming a front end developer or more specifically a JavaScript Developer is what you would want if you wanna build very high quality, tastefully designed, responsive (working on devices of all shapes and sizes etc). Web sites, web apps. This includes all sorts of websites, like online stores, chat rooms, e commerce, personal and business pages , just about everything etc.

This is a BIG arena and definitely one of the most popular and in demand types of work out there right now.

Also it’s one of the most rewarding. Pretty soon after getting a client you can build and show them things which LOOK good and they can start to see and appreciate their investment. And you as the developer feel like you are really giving them something good in exchange.

Becoming a front end dev is a very good start, it gets you grounded in html, css and JavaScript which really are the backbone of all things web. And you will need to understand html, css, and JavaScript as well as actually HOW the web works, how websites and servers communicate, how browsers work etc.

From there, you’ve learnt 3 languages (html css and JS) and especially because you learned and have experience using JS, learning back-end or databases, or any other language is going to be MUCH easier as they are all pretty similar but have there own unique features .

With just html css and JS under your belt and some JS libraries you’ll be able to freelance and get paid or -if you really work at it - get a junior development job at a company.

So that’s the career advice:

Go hard core and become a front end Web Developer.

Make that the goal and achieve it, and once your there you can continue learning more skills, back end stuff like Node.js etc, and you’ll have the foundation to choose if you want to go another route. Maybe make games, or specialize in backend, or Android apps or Apple Apps etc, web3(blockchain and other decentralized stuff like that) or just learn it all!

Now, in terms of HOW TO GET THERE.

Don’t worry too much now about not remembering everything. By the end of the below lineup you’ll be rock solid. And in regards to going blank when you try to build stuff, PRO tip: developers usually make wire-frames or draw with a pen and paper their ideas and plans for a website before they build it. This as a profession is called Web Design. The first step is designing the cite, then you can build it.

Going to build it first without having the mock up done is a bit of a mix of 2 steps into one, thus you get that blank phenomenon.

In most companies they will have people who do the design who then turn over to web developers who build it, and then pass it on to people who to test it for bugs, then people who optimize the user experience etc, and a project manager who coordinates all this.

So right now you’re learning a bit of everything, so just focus on doing what your doing while your doing it.

  1. Spend a few hours each day making progress on the @freeCodeCampurriculum.
  2. Make sure while you’re going through the lessons you look up things you don’t understand. Try to use W3school.com, and when you look something up, look at all the ways that attribute or element can be used, and mess around in the code space and try to get a decent understand of what you can do with it.
  3. Persist and get through the Responsive Web Design Course
  4. Get your RWD certification
  5. next Do the Data Systems and Algorithms course fully
  6. Get the cert
  7. Do the Front End Libraries course
  8. get the cert.
  9. once done with the above, your going to do what’s called the Advanced Beginner Challenge. This means you’re pretty darn advanced, you’re not totally a newbie, you actually know a lot, (thus why it’s called the “advanced” begin her challenge). Which goes like this :

Pick 20 tutorials, projects that YOU like or think would be cool to build within the frameworks of what you’ve already learnt. And build them. Watch the tutorials, don’t just copy the code, copy the code and actually look up and understand what it does and how it works.

By the end of the above steps you will be a total machine, have a solid grounding with hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice. The basics will be drilled in, you will have used many different skills and you will also have 20 projects you can put in your portfolio, social media, etc. You will gain that confidence and certainty and then you’re ready to apply for jobs, freelance, or do whatever you want. That’s basically the Front end roadmap.

Let me know your thoughts.

Hope this helps. :grin:

——————-

Pro TIP #2 : @hbar1st is a moderator on this platform. She will help you out ANY TIME with ANY bug. She is not FCC staff, she is a volunteer moderator and she is REALLy good. So give her props if she helps you out. You can message her or me if you ever get stuck. We will definitely help you out.

You can also message me if you ever get stuck, need some motivation or want help figuring something out.

Super Hard Core Pro Tip #3:
If you really are hard core. Do what I plan on doing, which is to do the entire FCC curriculum, then work with @freeCodeCamp on their Non-profit projects with a team of developers and someone directly at the Non-profit, and get hands on experience working in a group and do projects which make real impacts on the world, all while gaining invaluable experience. :muscle:

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To add, you can go search on MDN as well or if you want JavaScript specific things you can look into javascript.info

I’m thinking instead of watching project tutorials (which can be time-consuming), why not think and laydown the things needed to build that project.

A Todo List for example. You can start by searching for websites or applications you can inspire from and work your mockup from there.

Then you can start thinking of the features and how to implement them. Should my project let users create goals and add as many tasks to it? Should there be an Inbox section? How do I program tasks to be put in the Today section based on their due date? As others would say, start small when solving something. Write code like giving precise (but not always) instructions to the computer on what it should do step by step.

Another, I’ve read that its great if your built project can stand out from the rest. That could either start from the design, the features you’ve implemented or both. You might get an increased chance of being accepted for an interview.

Also, Hello There! I might be interested in linking up with you. Networking benefits perhaps? What do you think?

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Thank you for posting the above link!

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I absolutely love that. And yeah I totally agree. Making it more personalized like that I think also helps you get your mind around all the different use cases so you really get an in depth understanding while also building something with your own creativeness.

I’ve build some personal stuff for fun and practice and gone to other websites, and picked little pieces from different sites I thought were cool, like their hero designs or button designs or animations etc and then customized them on my own, and built some pretty cool features like that.

But, for the mega newbie, who might be struggling more getting everything down. Doing some tutorials might get you some wins and get you feeling good again so just doing straight tutorials never hurts.

I checked out Front End Mentor Challanges.
@vikramvi got me into them. Great for those who just finished Responsibe Web Design to get some practice and build REAL cool stuff with HTML and CSS. And later on once your done the JavaScript course also great big projects and they help you out along the way.

I know @codepen.io also has some cool feature building stuff too, which you can go on and read how to create Super cool functions and features on your site.

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:wave:t2:! I am also a newbie trying to absorb everything yet stay focused to learn the concept of one thing at a time. I’m currently working on the product landing page in the new course. I passed the code part but working to make it look more like the sample page. It’s a challenge but I feel I learn best this way. Thanks for offering up your assistance. That’s one thing I’ve learned about the tech community, there are so many helpful individuals.

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First of all. I love the username…
Secondly, yeah. It’s unlike any other community out there. Like people go OUt OF THEIR WAY to help you on your own personal projects. It’s a total blessing. And freeCodeCamp itself also providing all of this for free and making it easy for anyone to get started is quite amazing.

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Hey. Congratulations for finishing the RWD certification.

Now it is JS time :grinning:

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Thanks.

Yeah I’m rolling on the JavaScript curriculum, feel like I got my big boy pants on now. Lol

Definitely starting to feel more like I’m actually coding now (thank god I have some experience with C, which I think makes it faster for me with JS.).

Sounds good.
Congratulations for finishing the RWD certification.

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I am in the same boat, although you have probably done more research as far as listening to podcasts and such. Really enjoying learning how to code and hoping to never stop moving forward with it. I’ll be so excited once I get my responsive web design certificatation!

Hello, I am also a newbie. I completed Survey Form project in the responsive web design course. I want to build my career in web development. I want to team up too so that we could build projects.

It´s a great idea work together, I´m a newbie too…

Hi i am also a Newbie here, I started out my coding journey learning python by taking up courses on Udemy and Coursera.
I am starting Unity too and will also like to network and build relationships as i progress on my game development career.

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Hello All,

I Am not new to software because I am currently working in industrial automation. So I am used to complexity and solving difficult problems.

But I am not happy in the job. It is really a world with a lot of old things. Old code and programs from 20 year ago. So now I wil try to learn to become a developer in something else.

I tried before to start on it. But every time i quite so…

This time I hope to start and continu learning for longer. And i hope to try to link on to the community to, to stay motivated and maby find inspiration and connections.

Hi everyone, I’m Marcus from Nairobi, Kenya. I’m new to the programming space and so far I’m still in the front end part of the curriculum. I did start this in 2020 but life and school kinda became messed up and I had to step away. Now that I’ve graduated, I want to finish what I started. Just looking to connect with other coders and gain experience and knowledge. Nice to meet you all.

Heya! Figured I’d give this coding journey a new attempt, given it’s a new year and all. Here’s to an awesome 2023. Good luck to everyone and their dreams of switching careers and/or dreams of creating something incredibly awesome! :tada:

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I really really really need a buddy