5 experiences to start self-taught web development

The process of self-study is actually not easy. Not only did I need to learn how to code, I also had to explore ways to learn—learning how to learn, which is what I want to discuss today.

The following are the five steps I took to teach myself web development.

1. Choose the web development field that interests you.

You can’t become a web developer just by reading books and watching video tutorials. Web development is a huge field, and if you try to master every aspect at once, it will only make you exhausted, lose confidence, and give up halfway.

After you master this area of ​​knowledge, it will be much easier to learn other areas - this is a truth, you have no doubt.

However, after you master HTML and CSS, what you want to learn depends on your interest. Maybe you think Rails is ubiquitous and useful, maybe you think JavaScript frameworks have a bullish trend. Just like the reason why I am learning Meteor now is because I like its real-time capabilities. The reason doesn't really matter. In a word, interest is the best teacher, and it is also the only way to maintain motivation for learning.

Of course, if you feel that nothing particularly interests you, then you might as well learn some relatively popular technologies, such as JavaScript and PHP.

2. Please ignore the "guidance" of most veteran web developers.

Senior web developers often offer well-intentioned advice that is completely unrealistic for beginners. This is because:

You are a beginner and they are not.

They assume by default that you have mastered enough basic knowledge.

The focus is on some directions you may never encounter. (For example, what kind of problems will arise when scaling to millions of users.)

Like this article please don’t say the point in these words to beginner programmers, yes, these experienced web developers certainly The advice given is great, but you have to ask yourself: is it really practical and is it really suitable for you?

3. Set yourself a clear and achievable project.

After learning the basic knowledge related to web development, you might as well try to leave books and tutorials and try to create something yourself. The advantage of doing this is:

Get the pleasure of creating it with your own hands.

Discover weak points in knowledge.

Learn how to actually solve problems.

You can create anything you want, the only thing you have to do is make sure the project is as small as possible.

In addition, there should also be a definition of the project goal, that is, at what point the project is considered done. (It doesn’t need to be perfect, because there is no need to publish.)

Different web development fields chosen, the projects developed will be different, but the following projects are for reference:

To-do list app.

Private blogging tools.

Sports exercise tracking tool.

Basically, as long as the main purpose of the project is to track some basic data, it's a great way for beginners to test their knowledge.

4. Commit to a specific amount of daily practice.

When many beginners learn web development, they are very motivated when they make great progress, but they often give up when they make slow progress.

This is usually because beginners regard "progress" as their goal and rely on the satisfaction of progress to support themselves in continuing to learn. However, progress is actually unpredictable. Only through quantitative changes can you achieve qualitative changes. Master basic knowledge and keep learning. Even if there is no significant progress, you have actually improved yourself.

My suggestion is to use another approach:

Dedicate a certain amount of time every day to learn and practice web development. At least twenty minutes, but there is no enforced limit or requirement. You can reasonably plan your daily time according to your own needs.

5. A lot of practice materials.

The more you practice, the more you will master the skills naturally - I believe many people have heard this statement and view when they first started learning web development. "If you want to be a developer, you have to write a lot of code," but what you don't know is that the code here doesn't have to be written by you.

So, you must master these exercise materials and understand them thoroughly - carefully consider the purpose of each line of code you borrow - even if you are "memorizing", you are still learning.

What many people don’t know is that syntax is not the difficulty in web development. Although it is a stumbling block for beginners, later on, the tricky stuff becomes thinking about how to solve problems. It's particularly ironic that beginners often come up with more complex solutions than professionals.

For this reason, the benefits of dabbling in a lot of practice materials are:

You can see how different developers solve different problems.

You can see how different developers solve similar problems.

This way, when you work on your own projects in the future, you can:

Identify the core of the actual problem.

Find the key to solving your problem.

You may not be able to think of any specific solutions, but that doesn’t matter. Most of the problems have actually been solved by you in some form. As for the grammar and details, that's not a big deal.

Conclusion

Although I only shared my self-study experience in a general direction, I wish that someone could point me in the direction of travel when I was self-study.

If you have already started your self-study journey, welcome to share your journey, and, Good luck!