Self-Taught Dev Journey - The Beginning

Introduction
For the last few months, I've been learning web development using The Odin Project as my primary curriculum. I've made my way through the Foundations HTML/CSS section, and loved it so far. I'm now currently going through the Foundations JavaScript section. Unfortunately, my self-learning can sometimes be a sombre, scatterbrained, siloed approach. So I'd rather take an approach that encourages connecting with others and public learning. As such, I'm excited to document my journey here on dev.to and to help me

• maintain accountability and consistency,
• leverage the knowledge and network of the wider developer community here, and
• learn in public

Why Programming?
Why does software development appeal to me? Why all the learning? Among other things, it will alllow me to

• Increase my creativity and ability to logically solve problems
• Increase my neural plasticity and
• Continue on a lifelong path of learning, and eventually cascade that knowledge to others

Resources and Approach

• The Odin Project - Primary
• Scrimba, Jonas' JS Course and FreeCodeCamp - for reinforcing obscure concepts
• Full Stack Open
• Build projects

Goals

• Start a software developer job within the next year.

Takeaways
There's a ton(!) of things to learn and it's easy to get distracted, so my approach will focus on familiarity and comfort with key programming concepts, understanding JavaScript, using a JS framework, building projects for my portfolio, and then a job search. Thankfully, The Odin Project and Full Stack Open encourage that laser focus.

I expect to run into mental blocks and learning roadblocks but I'll show grit and doggedness to keep going till I meet my goal.

I'm confident it's about to be a worthwhile ride...