Learn How to Code
There have been many articles written on this very topic. This one comes from a 23 year old intern copywriter.
Last week I finished off the W3Schools JavaScript tutorials. I did the quiz and got 21 out of 25, but that kind of sucks because the questions aren’t meant to be difficult.
I understand that JavaScript is a difficult language to teach from a beginners point of view. Unfortunately, W3Schools didn’t do the best job in giving concise usable knowledge. There were barely any good practical examples that I can recall.
A little more “try it yourself” type of stuff could easily be implemented. Focussing on the things that novices will enjoy is important! What I have retained at least are the basics. I understand the different data types, events, assignment operators and loops but I’ll struggle if things get technical.
So I’m now trying to wrap my head around the next steps I should take in terms of development and the design kind of realm. I need to look at what will land me a job. Should I specialize in something? Should I just keep on trying different things and just being aware of what they can do?
There are a shitload more programming languages out there, and this is just judging from my Medium “for you” page which is now cluttered with JavaScript articles. Ironically, a lot of them complain about how difficult the learning curve is that it’s all becoming overly complex. I think this is more to do with the frameworks for JavaScript like React which have become more popular this year.
I literally had no idea what JavaScript frameworks were until I started doing the CodeAcademy tutorial on jQuery and from reading this. The switch to CodeAcademy only happened this week but so far I’m enjoying the more conversational way they try to teach. I’ll finish off jQuery before moving on to Bootstrap. I’ll also check out the foundational JavaScript tutorials.
Level Up
This is already a lot in terms of next steps. What I want to talk about now is this Quora article I stumbled upon whilst doing some Googling the other day. I was literally just searching for what to do after learning the three languages all developers must know (HTML, CSS and JavaScript). There were some interesting responses.
One of the more popular ideas was to just jump straight into building your own website. I understand this point of view in that you learn by doing. However, making a super basic website doesn’t really have any merit in it these days, especially when you have Wordpress and Squarespace. I also just don’t have the time to focus on this as there are so many more languages that I could be learning.
Another suggestion was to get involved in the Mozilla Development Community. The possible task types could give me some great insights into where my skills are at. I’m intrigued by the “I like words and code” section because this sums up exactly who I am being from a writing background. Regardless of whether the tasks are fun or monotonous it would be great to get some on the job experience.
One responder talked about knowing InDesign, and I can fully support that because of my internship experience. Being around designers all day has funnily enough rekindled my own interest in design. I’d like to learn more Adobe stuff but then there is also Sketch, and this is tempting to look into because its so much cheaper.
Something else that was mentioned was that now (after learning the basic languages) is the time to choose whether you want to work more in the front or back end. I’m still trying to grasp the differences between both however I think I can safely say that I want to stay more client side. In saying that, PHP and SQL seem to be in demand so they certainly aren’t pointless!
I want to be in more in the responsive web design area. Like I said before, Bootstrap and the JS frameworks are probably the best places to be investing time into.
There was also an argument for SEO. Yes, SEO is extremely important for being discovered organically but I think bigger than that is being able to build up an online audience for your work. The key here is quite simple; to just be really involved in different networks like Twitter, Hacker News and Product Hunt. Sending direct messages to people to ask them to look at your content usually works. This happened just yesterday when a writer asked me to download his book after I had retweeted him. I will happily support you if you ask me.
Sadly, I’ve only just discovered these two amazing tutorial websites in Smashing Magazine and Tutsplus. I say sadly because I wish I knew about them a year ago. They help you build cool stuff step by step. Lastly, I’d like to explore what being a UX designer means. Perhaps looking at some of the O’Reilly guides will be a good start.
All of this and more has been on my mind in recent weeks. It’s a scary but exciting time.
