It has been almost 2 years since I started my journey as a developer, and today, I just want to reflect on all the things I've done and learned over that period of time.
Starting Out
The first time I was exposed to computer science was when I was in my middle school computer science class. Although I didn't pay much attention in class, the entire coding phenomenon was quite interesting to me at the time.
The following year, I decided to take AP Computer Science Principles, and that decision literally changed the course of my entire life. Part of the final exam in that class is a programming project, and although it was language agnostic, my teacher taught us Python using CMU CS Academy.
I wasn't a particular fan of CMU's graphics library, so I decided to search up "python tutorial" on YouTube, and what ensued afterwards was me being sucked into a hole many call tutorial hell.
My First Programming Project
Throughout most of the time I took AP CSP, I went through Tech With Tim's Python programming tutorials, specifically the ones relating to the pygame module. This allowed me to build my first programming project using Python: a guessing game!
Although it wasn't much, building the project was quite the fun and difficult process. Through that project and really the entire AP CSP course, I realized that I could legitimately create an entire career out of this. After what I now call a monumental moment, I went all in into this amazing field.
From Python to Web Development
After working with Python and pygame for a while, it soon occurred to me that creating terminal apps is something I don't want to do; I want to build something I can show off to everyone. To do this, I started learning basic HTML and CSS on this amazing place called freeCodeCamp by taking their now legacy Responsive Web Design course.
Learning how to build an actual website was really exciting for me; so exciting that I jumped off in the middle of the course to start learning the language I use almost every day now: JavaScript. I learned JavaScript through many YouTube tutorials from channels like Web Dev Simplified, Clever Programmer, and again, freeCodeCamp.
Looking back, learning all HTML, CSS, and JavaScript concurrently was a really bad idea because I didn't really learn that much; consuming tutorials non-stop didn't actually help me learn that much. I now know that I was at that time enjoying my stay at tutorial hell.
If you are going to learn a new technology, stick to it! That'll help you learn that technology better.
How I Changed My Learning Style
Being in tutorial hell sucked a lot, and I didn't even know that I was in it at that time. The way I got out of tutorial hell was building projects. Now I don't mean clicking out of all those tutorials, opening up a new VS Code window, and start trying to build a new social media app; start small, then work your way up.
I first started looking at and doing project-based tutorials (I recommend Sonny Sangha and JavaScript Mastery for web dev project videos). Now you may think this isn't any different from consuming any regular web dev tutorial, but here is the difference; you need to build new things on top of these projects. Just blindly following the tutorial didn't do me any good, and it certainly won't do you any good; building new features for the app is something that can get you accustomed to the developing experience.
For example, if you are watching a video or reading an article on how to mint an NFT collection, you could try and add dynamically created NFT images on mint instead of using the existing assets the author of said video or article provides. This allows you to not only have a finished product (in this case, the NFT collection), but also learn something new (in this case, using dynamic image metadata to mint the NFT).
The Developer Mindset and My Reflection
Being a developer is way more difficult than I thought it would've been when I first decided to go all in, but it's also been an amazing journey. Spending hours upon hours trying to fix a bug is a not a fun but extremely well-worth experience. Seeing the red text go away or seeing that confetti when you deploy your app on Vercel makes me feel something that I just can't express in words.
If you asked me what quality all developers have, I'd say these two things: perseverance and determination.
Thank you so much for reading! Signing off 👋