Hi all! My name is Kenneth and I am an aspiring web developer. For 2 years I have been spending, literally, just about every free minute I have t...
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I started very similar to your story. I was 28 though and had 2 kids and a wife to worry about. I was stuck in a job I had to work at to keep the money coming in. Couldn’t go to school and very much had a passion for coding. I ended up starting my own company and taking on clients for web development. I never turned down a job even if I didn’t know what I was doing. And I stumbled and fell so many times. Eventually, that side business I started turned into a full time business, then a job offer later. Where I got a lot of my training. Everyone’s path is going to be different, but maybe if you really want it, you’ll figure it out. Are you interested in continuing to open source. I’ve got several projects I’m working on right now and would love to take someone like you under my supervision to mentor. Would that be something you’re open to?
I am very open to that. I would really appreciate that more than you know. How can I get started?
I know you said web developer. Which languages are you interested in? I’ve got some JavaScript and PHP.
Email me at josh@ua1.us so that we can coordinate a time this week to have a face to face over Google Hangouts. I’d like to get to know you more and what you are thing to accomplish.
First of, congrats ! Caring for your family while learning to code by your own looks like a lot.
I would say you don't need to spend a dollar to become a good dev, don't sweat it. You seems to be able to spend some time reading by your own and that's all that you need.
Dev.to offer some mentorship. In your settings, you can specify what you're looking for.
Finally, for the "where to focus" bit, no-one have the right answer (me included). Dev and especially web-dev moves at lightspeed. Chasing all the new shiny thing is the most common source of frustration for beginners. Don't try to learn specifics (one framework or one paradigm) but learn deeper (all the inside and out of a language) so that you can apply it to any situation.
Remember, successful devs do.
Luckily for coding, the need for mentor is less absolute neccessary than learning violin.
I think many tutorials online are very good.
If you need structure, I think there is a lot of online courses, while you can find similar minded people. Sometimes the best mentors are your peers who share the same motivation as you.
It is like finding a workout partner, where you two can push each and keep going.