Our world has been changed forever because of this global pandemic. One of the best things to come out of it is an increased awareness for having good hygiene. Another unexpected outcome occurred when everyone was forced to stay at home in lockdown for months. Naturally that led to us having more free time and more screen time. The upside of this other than increased bandwidth on streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon was more people learning how to code! When you are spending a lot of time at home it is important to be comfortable. I remember when I was shopping for a decent office chair and in all of the reviews people were talking about how they are working from home now and needed a proper chair to sit on.
Way back in 2019 BC (before covid) I bet nobody expected something like this to happen to us. But here we are now trying to adjust to our current situation still waiting for vaccines and deciding whether they are safe to take or not. It has been a traumatic time but in the process many people have found their voice. Learning to code, joining communities and sharing their personal journey on social media.
1. Why should you learn programming?
There are dozens of reasons why programming is a good skill to learn. For starters it is more than a skill it can also be a hobby. Creativity is something that most of us possess and programming is a great medium for expressing yourself. You can build almost anything you can dream of the only limit is your own imagination. And let's face it programming is cool when you bring something to life its a great feeling.
You can either choose to do it in your free time as a way to generate some passive income or go all in and make it your full time career. Whichever path you choose you will get some excitement out of it. Tech jobs usually pay very well and how many can say that they are living and working in their dream job?
Another great benefit comes from solving real world problems. You can use those skills to build things that make yours and other peoples lives better. For example you could make an app that keeps check of your home inventory and warns you when you are low in stock. Or in another example an app that does something to make your business more productive by cutting down on repetitive tasks.
2. What benefits do you get from blogging?
I actually started blogging last year in 2020 because of the pandemic we were all at home with plenty of free time. Initially I started blogging because I wanted to show companies that I was active in the community so that it would improve my chances of getting interviews. I never imagined that I would become a technical writer and content creator. One of the biggest benefits has to be that you can use it as a personal journal. This way you will be able to keep a track of all of the progress you are making.
Another extremely important point to mention is the fact that it is not only a learning tool for yourself but for others too. Sharing stories is how we connect with each other. The more authentic you are the easier it is for people to relate to you. It is also an amazing way to network and when you are a job seeker having these connections does wonders for your reputation.
Blogging is essentially a brain dump. A brain dump is basically a way for you to declutter and empty your mind of thoughts. It lets you manage all of the things that you need to do and is a way for you to organise your time efficiently. All of this leads to you having better productivity and you can de-stress.
3. How to plan out a winning strategy
This step is super important! You won't get anywhere fast if you don't know what you are doing. I have talked to many developers who tell me that they don't really know where to begin and they need a roadmap. I think a talking point that people should be figuring out right at the beginning is "why are you learning programming?" and "what do you hope to achieve?". As soon as you can answer those questions the next step would be to create a plan that you are going to follow.
I have noticed that its easy for people to get overwhelmed if they have too many options put in front of them. So I will just give you one strategy for getting started.
Download and install Notion on your computer and phone
Join Twitter and start the 100 days of code challenge. Start following developers on Twitter.
Sign up to DEV Hashnode CodeNewbie Medium then start writing articles.
Create an account on Discord and Slack and join developer channels
Joining developer communities is highly recommended. When I first started it took me a while to join developer communities because I got stuck in tutorial hell going from course to course. This was a noob mistake because I did not think I was good enough or ready yet and did not want to look bad for asking too many amateur questions. Even if you reach the level of lead or senior you are still going to be asking questions and learning new things daily. So don't be shy just ask it will save you hours of stress. Another important thing to mention is that I was learning too much when I started. Trying to learn all of the JavaScript frameworks but having no real projects to show beyond tutorials. Having less to learn at the beginning will make your progression more effective.
Notion is going to be your command centre this is where you will be managing everything. This is a powerful application I highly advise you to check out videos on YouTube so you can get an idea of how you can integrate it into your workflow. Let me give you an example. You can have page for blogging where you will have a table of all of the articles that you plan on writing. Give them a priority from low to high and make sure you have a start and completed date so you can sort them all.
It would also be a good idea to have a page called Monthly Goals or something similar. And here you can write notes and see which targets you hit or missed and what you will do next month etc... Those are just a few ideas I am sure you can come up with more of your own that works for you.
4. What is the best programming language to start with?
This is a question that gets asked over and over again every single day. In my opinion there is no best programming language to start with you just learn whatever works for you. Personally though if I was learning a programming language for the first time I would go with either JavaScript or Python. They are fairly easy to learn for beginners and you can become a front-end developer, back-end developer or full-stack developer by learning either one. Plus the community is huge and they get talked about a lot on social media. Of course they are not the only programming languages out there as many are just as popular so do your research.
5. When will I know I am ready to start looking for work?
Now this is a complicated question to answer. The game has changed so to speak as these days developers are expected to know a vast set of languages and tools. It can be incredibly frustrating and overwhelming to look at some job descriptions. Fortunately the day to day workings of the job are not usually as intense as the job descriptions lead you to believe. No job is the same and the development industry is quite diverse when it comes to skills.
I think that as soon as you have learned a few programming languages such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. And built some websites or apps then it would be worth dipping your feet into the water and seeing what is out there. It can't hurt to try and as a bonus you will figure out what areas you should be focusing on. So make sure that you read job descriptions on various job boards and try to learn skills in those areas. You will become interview ready eventually and if you are lucky you could get some offers early. Learning on the job is an option as well not every employer expects you to know it all right off the bat. It would also be a good idea to learn data structures and algorithms and practice on a coding site like HackerRank .
Lets Connect
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Peace! ✌️
Top comments (2)
I started learning to code last year during the pandemic, it's been fun but also overwhelming. There is still a lot I have to learn in order to land my first job in tech. Thank you for this, will definitely follow the notion tips. I really need to be organized.
Thanks glad I could be of help.