The latest articles on DEV Community by Steven Anthony (@stevenanthony). https://dev.to/stevenanthony https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F198596%2F5ab163f0-ca1d-4ae2-a163-a986c9567651.png https://dev.to/stevenanthony en Steven Anthony Sun, 21 Jul 2019 04:28:02 +0000 https://dev.to/stevenanthony/the-greatest-learning-technique-for-learning-to-code-1ha5 https://dev.to/stevenanthony/the-greatest-learning-technique-for-learning-to-code-1ha5 <p>I started programming when I was 18 years old, but I did it just because it was required in school, I just did what was required, that's it. I didn't retain any information, nothing at all. </p> <p>When I started university, I began to take things a bit more seriously. A lot of my curriculum was focused on Object Oriented programming, which was cool, but wasn't what I wanted to learn. </p> <p>I liked building web applications, so I tried to figure out some way online to learn. I bought some Udemy class for full stack javascript, I watched Youtube tutorials and followed internet guides. And the results were... </p> <p>Horrendous, I had been too busy following guides and just copy pasta coding. When it came time to trying to build something from scratch, I had no idea what I was doing because I wasn't actually learning, I was given everything. </p> <p>In reality, coding is about reading documentation, applying techniques given by other developers and problem solving (stack overflow is a good friend). That is how you learn to code. The biggest problem with following guides to build projects is that you're given everything. A large part of software developing is problem solving, by following guides that aspect is eliminated. </p> <p>The greatest advice I could give is simply just start something. Whatever you want to build, whether it be a web application or a mobile app, etc. Open the docs, read the "getting started" section, and voila. You're on your way to creating and finishing your first real project. </p> <p>Also a nice side tip that helped me learn: Try and code for at least 1 hour per day. This really helps retain things that you've learned on previous days and keeps your mind fresh. Nothing sucks more than returning to a 3 week old poorly documented code base :P </p> javascript career beginners codenewbie