What is something that has helped you study coding when you first started out?
Learning coding/ taking a bootcamp is very overwhelming with new information being thrown at you everyday and still feeling like you haven't totally grasped the concept of the lesson prior.
Please help by listing below some helpful tips to #codenewbies.
Top comments (6)
Put on some ambient music with noise cancelling headphones, take a few deep breaths, learn some more about what you are already familiar with, and start a project that genuinely engages you so you feel motivated to solve problems that occur. I'm personally interested in APIs so I'm building a TRON themed Discord bot that allows me to learn more while having one of my personal interests attached to it. I also have ADHD and the hurdles that come with that have given me some great ideas for tools I can create that will help others with what I experience.
Relating my personal interests and circumstances into projects I enjoy working on are what motivates me to learn more because it's meaningful for me rather than the stock standard "create e-commerce store", "make an app to track bookings for a restaurant", or "assemble a task tracker". Those things have real world application, but if I'm in a rut I am genuinely not interested in doing something that is meaningless to me, especially if I'm overwhelmed or feeling stuck on concepts.
I got booted from coding school because I wasn't keeping up with the fast pace due to me wanting to explore things in depth as I'm learning. I find it stressful to "keep up" while only having surface knowledge of something I'm doing. Now I have some time up my sleeve, I'm letting myself explore rabbit holes, and that's the learning experience that works best for me.
Find meaning. Learn more about what you already know. Let yourself explore and have fun with your imagination.
Yes! I love that you mentioned having meaningful projects! I normally try to listen to a lofi beat playlist that always shows up on youtube.
I use to work in the community of people with disabilities and there is so much lack for technology to be able to have a usable interface but is more complex rather than an typical picture to speech process.
After bootcamp, did you end up going back towards a different type of schooling or did you go towards self teaching to have concepts you enjoyed more?
Anthony Sommer and Meditative Mind are my go-to for giving my brain a rinse! A pretty version of white noise. I zone out pretty quickly with it.
You may be interested in Mycroft AI in regards to useable interfaces for those with disabilities; voice controlled, open source, freedom to add custom hardware, ability to create custom plug-ins for aforementioned hardware or extended functionality, API library for external integrations in a Zapier fashion, and a wonderful way to set up a secure smart home for people that need it. I'm big on IoT used responsibly and securely for this purpose and that's another dream project of mine: Smart home architecture that empowers. Mycroft is probably the perfect avenue for this due to its flexibility.
I'm going to focus on entirely self teaching now after realizing classroom formats put me to sleep instead of open exploration. I love rabbit holes and focusing on things until I understand them, and essentially learning through hands on experimentation with what excites me. My goal is to present employers with a portfolio of passion projects I genuinely enjoyed doing that show off my creativity and problem solving skills; I realised a diploma with mediocre marks for functional, competency based projects I didn't put my heart into isn't how I wanted to be seen in the first instance. It's scary going it alone after encountering multiple speed bumps and outright road blocks with getting qualifications, but there are plenty of successful developers I know personally who have found well paid, meaningful employment without qualifications by proving their skills through their passions.
I will definitely have to look into the music, it's always good to have different options when you end up getting tired of the old ones!
Thank you for the suggestion! looks like this AI could be a good option for the both of us! Right now the best I have for smart home wise is just my google that turns on my AC, lights, and of course my vacuum! It's amazing how many more things can be controlled by apps on our phones.
I feel like when you learn what helps you learn is the best, and also you really get to show who you as a person are when you are working on stuff you are truly passionate about!
I'm a 53 old ... and started coding around 1982, so a really hard to give a short advice for you. The key moment is reach the state when you can coding with passion.
Try to focus the selected program languages first, to understand deeply as possible. Do not use outer libraries, languages mix like javascript + HTML + CSS, just javascript is fare enough.
Imho, one of the best starting point to learn - near any programming language is: codewars, just start solve few basic task.
Thank you so much! I know the word of coding can be very overwhelming to first timers, but luckily there are so many resources now.