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Tatenda Carl Sakarombe
Tatenda Carl Sakarombe

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1 and a half years learning JavaScript. Here is what I'd tell the past me.

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So, it has been about 1 and a half years of me learning JavaScript and honestly it has been a roller-coaster journey. If I could talk to the one year ago version of me, this is what I'd tell him:

  1. Watch more coding videos. Watching videos of people coding shows you their thought process and it also shows you their mistakes, just to show you that everyone is human. This is especially important if you are self-taught and are experiencing some form of imposter syndrome.

  2. Start blogging. It's very ironic that I am mentioning blogging in a blog but blogging actually helps with getting your ideas down and being able to explain your code. Another great thing is that the developer community is very friendly and people are always keen to see you improve.

  3. Finding discord servers. This point ties in with the second one. Just find a community on discord and you'll be able to engage with different developers around the globe.

  4. Visit different sites and try to mimic them. The most growth I have ever experienced is when I have visited professionally built websites and trying to mimic them. This essentially throws you into the deep and and forces you to find weird and out-of-the box ways to solve the problems.

  5. In order to have structure, Read and follow a book. In the beginning of my JavaScript journey, I would just try to learn whatever I could without any kind of structure which really left me with looks of holes in my knowledge. Topics will become much clearer and if you can, write down notes just to keep track of what you have learnt.

As I progress further with my coding journey, I expect to encounter new and challenging topics and concepts and I am ready for the challenge. The ride has been good so far and I am far from reaching my destination so I might as well just enjoy the view!

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