Stop wasting time when you're learning to code!

when you're learning to code do you ever feel  like you're stuck learning the same thing over   and over again? you might watch a tutorial video  and by the end you feel like you kind of get it   but when the next day rolls around you've no clue  how any of it works anymore so you have to go back   and re-watch the tutorial but unfortunately this  pattern keeps repeating you might feel like none   of this knowledge is actually sticking in your  brain and it can get very frustrating to feel   like you're not getting anywhere so in this  video I'm going to cover some common pitfalls   that might be tripping you up and causing you  to waste time when you're learning to code   now as a disclaimer keep in mind that there  are no magical shortcuts that will transform   you overnight into a coding expert I know, even  with good learning techniques it's still going   to take time to go from a beginner developer to a  more advanced one alright let's get into the tips   the first one is don't learn things randomly  figure out a road map to follow if you're jumping   around trying to learn git one day CSS custom  properties the next and javascript promises on   the third you may be setting yourself up for a lot  of hardship instead of picking things at random to   learn look for a structured path that you can  follow one path you can use is a video on my   channel called learn web development for absolute  beginners it shows you a simplified roadmap of   the main skills that you'll need to learn and the  order to learn them in you can also go through an   online bootcamp curriculum like FreeCodeCamp, Zero  to Mastery or Ania Kubów's 12 hour bootcamp on   HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The benefit of following  a pre-made path is that you'll know what you need   to learn and when and as you go from one step to  the next you'll be able to see your progress and   feel like you're actually getting somewhere now as  you're following your path you might be tempted to   try to learn multiple things at the same time in  order to get through everything more quickly but   doing this may actually divide your attention  and make it harder for that knowledge to stick   so tip number two is don't try to learn everything  all at once but focus on learning one thing at a   time I recommend staying on one subject until  you feel you have a decent grasp of the basics   at least when you're starting out for example  let's say you're learning html first once you   feel like you know most of the common tags and can  build a very basic html web page you can move on   to learning CSS then in the future if you come  across an html tag that you're not familiar with   you can take some time to learn about that  specific tag tip number three be an active learner   don't just passively consume content sitting  back and watching an instructor go through the   material without trying anything yourself is not  going to get you very far instead try to do some   combination of taking a new information and then  trying it yourself in real life for example I went   through Wes Bos's CSS grid course back when I was  first learning about grid what I did was I would   watch the video and try to code along with wes  through the lessons if I didn't fully understand   something I would go back and watch it again and  after each lesson I would pause the course and try   to build the lesson examples on my own without  looking back as much as possible this trying to   create what you've just learned without looking at  the source code is a great way to see how much you   actually remember and it'll very quickly help  you identify the weak points in your knowledge   so you can then go back and fill it in after the  course was done I felt like I had a basic grasp   of CSS grid but I wouldn't consider myself an  expert by any definition and I think that's okay   because I could try to use grid when building  website layouts and if I ever got stuck on   anything I could refer back to the course or  other resources like Mozilla Developer Network   learning new skills and coding is a combination  of learning the knowledge and putting it into   practice which brings me to tip number four don't  just memorize stuff remember back in school when   you were learning vocabulary words and history  dates you might have studied lists of facts and   memorized them so that you could regurgitate  them for tests and quizzes now I'm not here to   debate the pros and cons of rote memorization  however trying to learn html by just memorizing   lists of all the html tags is not going to be very  effective coding is an applicable skill not just a   collection of abstract facts obviously you do need  to be able to remember things in order to use them   but you're going to learn flexbox a lot faster  if you explore all the different properties by   playing around in a code pen for a day or two as  opposed to just memorizing the definition of flex   grow no web developer is going to know everything  off the top of their head I can attest to this   as someone who worked in the industry for a long  time and worked with other professional developers   we all used Google or DuckDuckGo if you care  about your privacy to look up stuff constantly   in a way Stack Overflow, MDN, and CSS Tricks  become kind of like an extension of your brain   the goal of all this is to be able to build  websites and if you need to look up stuff   along the way that's perfectly fine everyone  does it and that brings me to tip number five   build stuff I know everyone says this but it  really is the best way to learn coding watching   tutorials and going through courses is the  beginning not the end of learning web development   at my first web dev job I would be given a  project like building a landing page with a button   and getting it to submit to a database now since  this was my job I had to build it I didn't really   have a choice and oftentimes I'll be given a task  that I had no idea how to do scary right the only   solution was to jump right in and try my best I  would look stuff up and try things on my own and   ask for help when I really was stuck even though  the process of figuring this all out may have   been very painful at times it was all worth it in  the end when I got to look at my finished website   and this is one big benefit of learning by  building projects having a tangible goal in   front of you is great because when you reach it  you'll feel like you've really achieved something   if you're looking for project ideas don't worry  because there are tons of them on the internet   search for things like "javascript project  ideas" or "react project ideas" you get   the picture and personally I always recommend  FrontendMentor.io for front-end projects that   are also great additions to your portfolio I've  built a few Frontend Mentor projects on my channel   and if you're interested you can check out  Building a Responsive Website from Scratch   and more recently, Building a Social  Media Dashboard with a Dark/Light Toggle   and if you do watch these don't forget to  code along with me as you watch anyway if   you're currently learning to code I really  hope that this video has been helpful for you   let me know down in the comments what you thought  and if you have any more tips that you found   useful feel free to share those as well so thanks  for watching and we'll see you in the next one :)

Channel: Coder Coder

Views: 434,189

Keywords: web development

Id: s6dMWzZKjTs

Length: 6min 56sec (416 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 12 2021