Learning to code, especially learning front end development, is pretty simple if you have a clear plan. Code can definitely be intimidating if you’re looking at it for the first time, but once you have an idea of what you want to do it learning becomes a little easier. Here’s how I learned front end development, easily broken down in a few simple steps.
Know what you want to build
When first learning front end development, I first looked at what I wanted to focus on and build. For me, it was web development. Why? I wanted to build websites and applications, things that everyday people could use online. I figured most people go on the web more than app stores, which meant that learning web development would be a good place to be. Now, I knew what I wanted to do. This makes learning a little bit easier.
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How will you learn? Create a plan
The next thing I looked into was how I would learn the skills for front end development. I realized that I needed need to learn full-stack development, which entails both the front end, or visual part of an application, as well as the backend, or the logic and information. My advice – don’t try to learn all these skills at the same time. Learn the front end first, and then the back end. I watched people like CodingPhase and TechRally on Youtube. I read documentation. (Another tip – find sources you like and use them to help you learn. If you like the person or source, you’re more likely to listen and learn to them.) Some good sources are https://www.w3schools.com/ and https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/.
I’ve been a web developer for eight months now, and I still have a lot to learn. But once skill that has helped me learn front end development is the ability to read documentation. Tutorials are a quick way to see how someone else has done something, which can be helpful, but if you truly want to learn front end development, reading and finding the answers yourself through resources is the best ideas.
Know what you need to know (What’s a tech stack?)
So now you’re learning front-end development. But, what do you have to know? I started with the basics, HTML and CSS. Keep this in mind – the best way to learn is to build projects from day one. This is more helpful than any video or article. From then I learned JavaScript and jQuery. This portion took about six months to learn. I’ve spent the last two months using my current tech stack of React on the front end, and learning MySQL and PHP/Laravel for the backend.
I chose this tech stack (programming languages used to build a project) because it allows me to build what I’m interested in. So that’s another tip – learn languages that will allow you to build what you’re interested in – not necessarily what’s popular. And then build projects.
So, let’s review. If you want to easily learn front end development, here’s how I would do it:
Know what you want to build
Figure out how you are going to learn to build that thing
Find out what you need to know to build that thing
Start building that thing
One other thing – you do not need to memorize every single syntax. Use your resources. Use StackOverflow. Use Google. Over time, I’ve found that you will remember more and more. So, have an idea? Start building today, and very soon, you too will learn front end development easily.
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