Recently, I was asked by a friend of mine how he would go about getting started in web development. So, I figured I would write a blog post on it and help him out, along with anyone else who might stumble across this.
I started out using Code School and Treehouse. I read a ton of blog posts and fumbled my way through books reading about a lot of things I didn’t understand. I also tried to complete every tutorial I came across. Finally, I found The Odin Project which explains things in a more organized way and gives you a learning map, if you will.
Now, there is FreeCodeCamp. They have a learning map and a forum and their own chat for people to go and ask questions. You can use your browser to complete the exercises and it will give you quick right/wrong feedback. FreeCodeCamp is great for beginners and starts you out assuming you know nothing about coding.
If I were to do it all over again, I would start out using FreeCodeCamp and supplement it with The Odin Project. Learn what Github is and how to use git and the command line. Build as much as you can and contribute to open source projects. Look for typos in the README.md files or simple CSS bugs. Some projects have special labels for easy fixes and beginners.
Another good resource is YouTube. Unfortunately, bad habits can be formed by watching the wrong videos, but once you figure out who is who and what is considered good practice, they can be a great source of information.
Becoming a web developer can be frustrating and time consuming, but it is also fun and rewarding. Web technology is constantly changing and keeping up with it all is challenging. If you think you’re up for a challenge, give FreeCodeCamp a try. What’s the worst that can happen?