How to start learning code

Vinh Lee
Vinh Lee
Aug 24, 2017 · 2 min read

Experience from a self-taught web developer

The Story

I started learning how to code since I was a freshman at business school. Having been studying in Finland in where the winter could drop to -30deg, I tried to survive during that winter by learning something new. The idea of developing a website then came up to my mind. The journey began from then.

Why coding but not using WordPress or other easier-to-use tools?

I first did some researches about web developing tools and got to know there are basically 2 ways to build a web page: using web-developing platform like WordPress, Wix, services from web hosting platforms or a much more challenging way: building from scratch. With no coding experience and being frightened by Pascal in high school, I imminently jumped in to WordPress site, picked a nice domain wordpress.com and started exploring. However, I gradually realized that after installing a specific theme for my page, I could not find anyway to organize and style elements in my way. Everything is almost fixed which made me quite disappointed. That is why I turned to the other risky and more thorny one: coding my own website.

Where to learn?

There are many ways to learn code: books, videos, attend bootcamps either virtually or directly for instance. Coders will find their own preferences while studying.

Sharing and experience

Try to do a real project while learning

My best recommendation is to try to implement what you have learnt from your preferred channels to your personal project. For example you can create your own page as an Online CV, create a Blog site for your friends or whatever it is just so you can find a chance to code in real project.

Consistency

As started from a beginner, my experience is follow these steps: extremely excited at first when you can type first lines of code, then getting lost and feel like giving up, then backing on track again after realizing that I can learn a little bit everyday just to keep the fire on. Therefore, consistency is very important. There are times that I stopped learning for a while, lets say several months, then I had no motivation to move on. However, since I started again and spend around 30mins-1 hour playing around with code and learning new things and try to pick a real project for myself, I found it much easier to go on, find more, learn more to hone your skillset.

This is the end of this blog. Thanks for reading!

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