I just joined the DEV community and it’s really daunting!
Everyone seems so knowledgeable in their various fields. Frankly speaking, that’s really...
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Welcome, welcome!
Mmm. Not sure about this one lol. This site is very beginner heavy--to the point where I would recommend taking some things with a grain of salt. I don't say that to be derogatory and in some ways I'm including myself in that. A lot of us aren't writing from our expertise--we're writing because we literally just learned a new thing and want to hang onto it.
Regarding burnout: I think that's a little overblown in our field. Developers have a lot of choice in what industry they work for and who they work for. Burnout generally happens when either:
Either way, if you're aware of the risks of burnout, you've already won half the battle. You can totally just chose a low-key, slow moving company or organization that respects your work life balance. Recommended reading: The DevOps Handbook because it teaches you that developer "heroics" are completely unnecessary--they're caused by bad company decision making and result in bad products.
Happy to give advice, and again welcome aboard! Do you need any help figuring out where to start?
Thank you so much for responding.
Any help figuring out where to start will be most welcome😊
If you're starting from a blank slate, I usually recommend FreeCodeCamp.com because it allows you to fully start from zero with a curriculum structured enough to prevent you from getting fully stuck (a common disease among beginners). If you do have an idea what language you want to start with, then my favorite resource is whatever is on the sidebar for the subreddit for that thing. (I'm being a little tongue in cheek in the way I phrased that, but I do unironically believe that subreddit sidebars are the gold standard of finding programming tutorials.)
After you've learned enough beginner content to get comfortable, you have two paths you can go down:
Some people feel strongly about which way is better because people get defensive about the kind of education that they value more highly, but honestly it's picking your poison. If you go with the first, you might start to internalize bad practices, and the code that you write as a beginner may well be so badly structured that you can't realistically finish your app. If you go with the second, you may struggle with motivation to continue or you may struggle to remember what you learn if you don't have enough of an opportunity to apply it. Either way, you need both before you can reasonably say you've leveled up to an intermediate programmer.
I personally tend to favor the second way so I tend to recommend software engineering podcasts like CodingBlocks.NET or combinations of programming languages to round you out but you could also search around for app ideas or good small projects for your portfolio.
Hope this helps!
This is really helpful.
Thanks!
Hi Patience Wellington,
welcome and thank you for your article.
The short sentences made it easy and quick to read for me.
I believe you are in the right place.
I have found the community to be very accommodating.
And DEV.to has many articles for beginners.
If you are interested in reading an article, my advice is: try to reproduce the content of that article.
This allows you to learn more intensively and to point out errors in articles that you can report to the author.
Most of the time they will be grateful because it improves the quality of the article.
Regarding the other things you mentioned in your article, I see that other community members have given wonderful answers.
Cheer up and don't put yourself under too much pressure.
Welcome! What languages are you familiar with?
Thank you!
I know a little bit of C and python.
Welcome to DEV. The comments from @webbureaucrat are excellent advice. DEV is very welcoming. And there are many beginners. In fact, you'll often see posts from beginners journaling about what they are working on.
If you haven't already, subscribe to a few tags, which will help keep your feed more relevant. You obviously found the #beginners tag since you used it on this post. Pick a couple more on things you're interested in. You'll still see posts from other tags. For example, I don't subscribe to either of the tags you used on this post, and I still saw it in my feed. But you'll tend to see more from your subscribed tags.
Someplace in the settings there is a setting where you can specify your experience level, which in theory can also help keep your feed more relevant to you, although that assumes writers have specified skill level in their post settings, which I often neglect to do.
Thank you so much.
I’ll make sure I implement every advice given😊🙏🏽
Welcome. Like your name, with Patience you'd grow to be what you wish to be. This post is a gradual step and I got to be reminded of burnout and re-ask myself if where I am is where I envisioned to be. Thank you. So continue to share as you progress in your journey of learning. This is a welcoming community for everyone. I am sure you would be guided appropriately.
Thank you so much☺️
I’ll definitely share my journey.
Welcome! If what you are looking for is a wholesome and welcoming community, this is definitely it. That's why I often recommend DEV. Especially for beginners.
I can see how the massive amount of information can be overwhelming when trying to make your first steps, and you are right that many people on tech are highly opinionated.
My advice: Pick a language/tech stack you are interested in and stick to it for a while. Don't get sucked into the "you should be learning this language" or "you are not a developer if you don't do X" advice that sometimes appears on social media. In my experience, once you learn the core programming concepts and work with a language/stack for a while, everything becomes clearer, you can make better decisions, and it's definitely a good investment. I saw in a comment you knew a little bit of C and Python; those are both great! I'd dig into that a bit.
If you are unsure where to start, you could create another post asking people how to get started with the tech you choose. People here seem to be always willing to lend a hand!
Really helpful advice, thank you Paula.😊
Ow too many questions! Welcome on dev.to ! 🎈✨