I will preface this article by saying that I don’t claim to know everything about being a web developer. There will always be something new to learn and Google will be your life long partner as a developer.
With that said, I wanted to do my best to write out my answer to the question I receive most frequently; Where should I start to become a web developer?
I had this exact question when I started and it’s something a lot of people struggle with. You are not alone. Simply looking at job postings tends to make you think you need to be an expert in 14 different languages and have 8 years of experience in each of them.
That is not the case.
When I first started my path of teaching myself how to code, I wanted so badly for someone to just layout the steps of what I need to learn and spend my time on. Here are my 3 steps to getting started as a web developer.
Step 1:
The amount of coding languages out there to learn is overwhelming. It can lead you down a path switching back and forth between languages and wasting time.
Your foundation should be built on the basics. HTML, CSS, and in my opinion, basic Photoshop skills. Something that I used personally and loved was freecodecamp. It takes you through the basics and into more complicated languages and libraries for many different career paths.
If you aren’t sure what you want to do, this quiz is short and sweet and can help you narrow down where to start.
Step 2:
Don’t get ahead of yourself. I had this problem…big time.
It’s easy to start learning a new language and want to jump to another one. Plain and simple, stick with what you’re learning, practice it, and move on when you’re comfortable.
Step 3:
Don’t get discouraged. Learning something new is never easy and this is especially true when it comes to coding. Getting frustrated that you forgot a semi-colon or brackets will pretty much never go away. That’s where the right text editor comes in handy to help guide you along the way. Check out atom.io With an abundance of plugins, it’s one of the best out there.
Starting with 3 simple steps is what’s needed for most of us out there teaching ourselves. Figure out why you want to learn, what you want to do, and be patient with yourself.
