Like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know*

#learning #programming #coding #beginners

My introduction to the world of coding was basically this sentence: "JavaScript is for frontend, Python for backend".

Now, just imagine to be in your 30s and suddenly deciding to switch fields. You have to start learning a completely different topic and try to figure out what those words mean, without any prior technical knowledge.

I don't blame the person I asked to explain programming to me at the time, but I felt pretty confused. The only thing that stuck with me was that Python was a more rigid language than JavaScript.

So, I dove into JS and started reading some books at first, before switching to the Codecademy related course to actually gain some hands-on experience. But... what was the point of all of that? I mean, yeah, it was cool, but what was the purpose of learning about variables, loops, conditionals, and OOP? It's really hard as a beginner to abstract these concepts and see any practical uses of them.

Luckily, I later discovered the Code Foundations Path, which was very helpful at the time for getting a better general picture of the field.

But, the first tip that I would give to my past self is: get used to that feeling of being uncomfortable. It won't go away, and the sooner you accept it, the sooner you will understand that it's actually part of the whole learning process.

Things accomplished this week:

I've finished reading Cybersecurity Career Guide, by Alyssa Miller (Manning).
I've started reading Programmare by Paolo Aliverti and Linux Basics for Hackers by occupytheweb (No Starch Press).
I've completed the Networking Basics course on the Cisco Networking Academy (highly recommended and, hey, it's free).
I've completed some rooms on TryHackMe, but right now I think I'm gonna to switch to Hack The Box; it looks less chaotic to me.
I've practiced my Python skills with some nice challenge on Codewars.
I've continued to study for SC900 and the AWS Cloud practitioner exams (did some say boring? No, don't look at me).
I've learned how to set up a Scrum board in Jira.