There are many success stories from students of The Complete Web Developer Course and one of them comes from Fred Spring who runs a daily satirical round-up of international news. He has written a piece about his experiences which other students may find useful. You can sign up to Fred’s newsletter at www.dailypnut.com to start your day with a laugh.
By Fred Spring, co-founder of The Daily Pnut
Like most people. I used to be terrified of anything to do with computers. Any tech issue and I would be on the phone with anyone to get them to help.
Then when we co-founded the Daily Pnut, a daily newsletter with a funny take on the world (sign-up here…people seem to like it), no one on the team knew anything about coding, and we didn’t have any money to go out and hire a developer. I decided to try it out.
I first started by Googling “how to learn coding”. Got about 900k different responses and still didn’t have a clue. I found most courses boring and I promptly forgot that I wanted to learn to code.
A few weeks later a Google ad popped up saying “The best coding course I’ve ever used.” (Google definitely spies on you). It was a video course made by a Brit (I’m a Brit so was re-assured). I tried, got hooked, and built a site within two weeks.
I’m still not a great coder but I can work out how to do stuff instead of shutting my laptop and running away whenever something goes wrong.
To non-coders, this is how you do it:
1. Learn:
Buy Rob Percival’s The Complete Web Developer Course on Udemy. Download all the videos offline. This is all you need to start and build your own stuff. He speaks “human” and is very responsive on forums if you have issues. Just watch the videos whenever you can and familiarize yourself with the language.
2. Supplement:
Download Codeacademy — do these on the side. It helps you get used to the more geeky language side of things and you don’t see the results immediately but helps you understand concepts.
3. Build:
Theme Forest is basically the Amazon of website templates. Find a theme that looks vaguely like the one you want. Buy it and play around with the code on it. If you have questions use the coding forum Stack Overflow and you get amazingly quick responses.
4. Stay motivated:
Work on specific problems so that you ensure you have a lot of quick wins early on (e.g. how do link Facebook to login or how do I put video on a site). Think in terms of what it will look like not the code itself.
5. KEEP LEARNING
Once you have an understanding of the basics and can code up a basic site you can then choose what you want to specialize in. You can then wade into the horrific world of “what language should I learn” forums.
Why It’s Good to Learn
In retrospect I see now that learning how to code isn’t just important if you want to start your own company, there are a whole host of other reasons to learn:
· Opportunities: Being familiar with coding opens increases the breadth of jobs you can apply to. You no longer run away when people talk about computers.
· Money: You have a hard skill which you can continually grow. You can do some mini-projects on the side. Also you can save money as you often get way over-charged by hiring developers even for small things.
· Satisfaction: You get to overcome that feeling of helplessness you have whenever you are faced with a technical task. You can also talk to engineers with a straight face.
· Kudos Your friends will ask you to help them with their sites. Very satisfying to help out them out where you can. Granted, I’m still not very good so my help is often not that extensive.
Happy coding (oh and don’t forget to sign up)!
Recent Comments