"Never Ready"
When I was starting off, one of the most popular development courses for beginners was Colt Steele’s The Web Developer Bootcamp. This course takes you from absolutely 0 knowledge up to building a full-stack application with HTML/CSS and JavaScript.
This course has more than 60 hours of video content, plus whatever time it takes you to actually implement and practice what you learn. Yet, I’ve seen countless people (me included) already planning their next tutorial when they haven't even finished this one.
This is a clear example of one of the biggest mistakes that I see beginner developers do: never believing that they are ready. I’ve seen this lack of belief manifest in different shapes and forms. For example:
“Once I’m done with this tutorial, then I’ll be ready.”
“I just need to read all the documentation first, then I’ll finally be able to code something.”
“I don’t know how to code in X. I have only coded in Y.”
Code, code, code
If you want to become a developer of whatever kind (i.e. front-end, back-end, full-stack), you don’t need another tutorial. What you need is something to build. You need an idea of a project that excites you and that you build yourself. No tutorial, no code along.
“But I wouldn’t even know where to start!”
Welcome to the world of development!
Unless there’s something that you have previously done repeatedly, you will have little idea of where to start. With experience, you will gain the confidence to take on projects for which you don’t know where to start.
Actionable Steps
I know that this might be underwhelming. Tutorials and code along videos make one feel accomplished and excited. Learning new concepts feels like success. There is certainly some merit to that, but if you want to become a developer as soon as possible, you need to get to code as soon as possible.
So if you feel concerned by what I’ve just mentioned, here’s what I would do:
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Assess your current situation.
- Wrap up any tutorial(s) that you have in progress and take note of what you've learned so far.
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Think of a project that excites you.
- Try to come up with an idea that interests you, but that doesn’t feel too unreachable. There is something out there for you. Find it.
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Draft a write-up of the approach.
- Take a notepad, tablet, or your word-processing tool of choice and start writing down how you think you can approach this project. Is there anything that you already know how to do? Write it down. Is there anything that you don’t know how to do? Also, write it down.
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Research your unknowns.
- The stuff that you don’t know how to do: Google it. Literally. Google “how to do X?” and start clicking your way through official docs, StackOverflow posts, blog articles, YouTube videos, etc. At this point, you don’t want to have the perfect answers to your questions. Rather, you just want to make sure that there is enough information out there that you can digest and that will help you figure it out along the way.
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Start coding.
- By now, you should have a pretty good idea of what’s required to build your project. If it’s doable, get to coding. Start with the stuff you know until you…
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Get stuck.
- Got stuck? Google it. Got a cryptic error? Google it. Imagine you had the perfect developer next to you. What would you ask them? Now take that question and put it on Google. Make peace with the fact that you will get stuck. Stuck for days or weeks? Ask online. But keep looking, trying, tinkering. Be curious about why it’s not working. This is probably the most important skill that you will need as a developer.
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Celebrate your final project! 🎉
- With some time and effort, you will make it. Share your accomplishments with friends, family, Twitter, or even a dev.to blog post. Let me know once you build your project. I'd be happy to check it out!
Now, get to it!
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