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Mariam
Mariam

Posted on • Edited on

so you want to be a web developer

Hey, I am a newbie and only recently committed to learning web dev and today i'd like to talk about how to plan out your learning process to tackle a plethora of resources in a fast moving industry.


Well first let me tell you how things unfolded in my journey so far, after months of trying to learn everything at once while being completely overwhelmed because it was a lot and being stuck in tutorial hell and giving up and after a while, I would come back and do the same thing all over again until I decided to just dive headfirst though it was a great approach to get me coding I mean I build 6 projects so far

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but it created some gaps in my knowledge of the fundamentals of CSS and that lead me to bookmark every book, article, blog post, and courses that have the word CSS in it so now I don’t want to open chrome because just looking at the bookmarks made me utterly exhausted.

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Then it hit me, I’m taking everything at once and not customizing it to my learning needs so I made a plan I deleted all the bookmarks (kind of a regrettable decision) ,searched for roadmaps and took so many notes of what should I learn and then I went through each subject and test my knowledge in it and if I understand it I would prove it to myself then I can cross it off the list and move on for what’s next, cool now I know what should I focus on so I will get my resources together, organize everything out


Now we're getting into the meat and potatoes of this post

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So for 1 week I study 2 or 3 subjects and take an ungodly amount of notes and next week build something focused on what I learned then go back to my notes tidy them up and because doing that helps cement new information and see that project I did in week 1 I will go back to it and add new thing I learned to it just to see how things react together.


Lastly, keep learning, find better ways to learn, stay consistent and remember just like you plan your projects you should plan your learning process.

By the way, this post by Devin Ford💻🚀
helped me out a lot in term of CSS resources check it out

If you guys have other methods on how to fill the gaps in your knowledge effectively,leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter!

Top comments (10)

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perpetual_education profile image
perpetual . education

That's a good plan. Study: Then put into practice.

We wrote a few things on this subject here:

/programming-is-hard-because-you-d...

/escape-tutorial-purgatory/ - specifically the video in this one!

/is-it-possible-to-learn-web-devel...

There are also a lot of things you can do in-between programming to fill in the bigger picture gaps. These books: Elements of User Experience, Don't Make Me Think, and Exercises for Programmers - are invaluable in your journey to become a powerful developer. These other books are important to the even bigger picture of being responsible for what you put in the world - as a designer: Design for the Real World, Ruined by Design - and well, so many books! : )

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mariamv_96 profile image
Mariam

omg thank u soo much i really appreciate your advice :)

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omarkhatib profile image
Omar • Edited

Hi Mariam , My advice is make small things first but make them good then try to advance those concepts in bigger things. Also my ultimate advice save all your works both code and screenshots b/c when you apply for a job they will be very usefull.There a lot of advices but I don't know if they are good to newbie.

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mariamv_96 profile image
Mariam

thanks for the advice, i always waste so much time trying to create the next netflix lol i should definitely slow down and start small :)

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pencillr profile image
Richard Lenkovits

This might sound counter intuitive, but this worked the best for me:
Don't go from simple to complex. Go straight for the deep waters.

I went this way: figured out something I would like to build, and I started taking it apart and figuring out each part, how it behaves and connects to the next component.
Context helps. It's better to learn databases by creating a webapp that interacts with a database, than just practicing queries on an isolated db.
But that's my view.

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wagslane profile image
Lane Wagner

Sounds like you are off to a good start. Remember... The money is typically in the backend. Don't be afraid to learn Go! I have an app where you can learn in the browser: classroom.qvault.io

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mariamv_96 profile image
Mariam

thank you, will definitely check out your app

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devindford profile image
Devin Ford

Awesome first write up!! Love the office and parks and rec additions as well.

Really appreciate the shoutout and glad you found my article helpful! Can’t wait to read more!

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thejscode profile image
Jaskirat Grewal

Hi Mariam, My advice for you is: don't go for everything at once. Make sure you understand atleast the necessary things about HTML, CSS and JavaScript first. Understanding in this context means that you must be able to use the concepts according to your needs. Like learn about HTML, Forms, Dynamic Forms. Then move to CSS and then Vanilla JavaScript. Learn callbacks and promises. Learn about array and objects. Then take next steps. I have posted a roadmap which can help you. Please check it out.

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thearlsankhalid profile image
Arslan Khalid

Awesome first write up. You surely made the right decision by making a rosdmap and committing to it.